The lightning conductor

THE

LIGHTNING
CONDUCTOR

WILLIAMSON

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES

GIFT OF

Gr.C.DeGarrao

'WHY, BROWN, IS THAT YOUf" SHE QUAVERED.— Page 76

SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION

THE

LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A MOTOR-CAR.

EDITED BY

C. N. and A. M. (WILLIAMSON

Authors of" Tht Princess Passes"

REVISED, ENLARGED
AND ILLUSTRATED

GROSSET & DUNLAP

NEW YORK

Copyright, 1903, 1905,

BY

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Twentieth Impression

TO THE REAL MONTIE

087838

THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

IN THB OAK ROOM, THE "WHITE LION,"
COBHAM, SURREY, November 12.

Dear Shiny-headed Angel,

I hope you won't mind, but I've changed all
my plans. I've bought an automobile, or a motor-
car, as they call it over here; and while I'm writing
to you, Aunt Mary is having nervous prostration on
a sofa in a corner at least a hundred years old — I
mean the sofa, not the corner, which is a good deal
more. But perhaps I'd better explain.

Well, to begin with, some people we met on the
steamer (they were an archdeacon, with charming
silk legs, and an archdeaconess who snubbed us till
it leaked out through that Aunt Mary that you were
the Chauncey Randolph) said if we wanted to see a
thoroughly characteristic English village, we ought
to run out to Cobham; and we ran — to-day.

Aunt Mary had one of her presentiments against
the expedition, so I was sure it would turn out nice.
When we drove up to this lovely old red-brick hotel,
in a thing they call a fly because it crawls ; there were
several automobiles starting off, and I can tell you I
felt small — just as if I were Miss Noah getting out the
ark. (Were there any Miss Noahs, by the way?)

2 The Lightning Conductor

One of the automobiles was different from any
I've ever seen on our side or this. It was high and
dignified, like a chariot, and looked over the heads
of the others as the archdeaconess used to look
over mine till she heard whose daughter I was. A
chauffeur was sitting on the front seat, and a gorgeous
man had jumped down and was giving him direc-
tions. He wasn't looking my way, so I seized the
opportunity to snapshot him, as a souvenir of English
scenery; but that tactless Kodak of mine gave the
loudest "click" you ever heard, and he turned his
head in time to suspect what had been happening. I
swept past with my most "haughty Lady Gwen-
dolen" air, talking to Aunt Mary, and hoped I
shouldn't see him again. But we'd hardly got seated
for lunch in a beautiful old room, panelled from floor
to ceiling with ancient oak, when he came into the
room, and Aunt Mary, who has a sneaking weakness
for titles (I suppose it's the effect of the English
climate), murmured that there was her ideal of a
duke.

The Gorgeous Man strolled up and took a place at
our table. He passed Aunt Mary some things which
she didn't want, and then began to throw out a few
conversational feelers. If you're a girl, and want
fun in England, it's no end of a pull being American;
for if you do anything that people think queer, they
just sigh, and say, " Poor creature! she's one of those
mad Americans," and put you down as harmless. I
don't know whether an English girl would have
talked or not, but I did; and he knew lots of our
friends, especially in Paris, and it was easy to see

The Lightning Conductor 3

he was a raving, tearing "swell," even if he wasn't
exactly a duke. I can't remember how it began,
but really it was Aunt Mary and not I who chattered
about our trip, and how we were abroad for the first
time, and were going to "do" Europe as soon as we
had "done" England.

The Gorgeous Man had lived in France (he seems
to have lived nearly everywhere, and to know every-
body and everything worth knowing), and, said he,
"What a pity we couldn't do our tour on a motor-
car! " At that I became flippant, and inquired which,
in his opinion, would be more suitable as chauffeur —
Aunt Mary or I; whereupon he announced that he
was not joking, but serious. We ought to have a
motor-car and a chauffeur. Then we might say, like
Monte Cristo, "The world is mine."

He went on to tell of the wonderful journeys he'd
made in his car, "which we might have noticed out-
side." It seemed it was better than any other sort
of car in the world; in fact there was no other
exactly like it, as it had been made especially for him.
You simply couldn't break it, it was so strong; the
engine would outlast two of any other kind; and
one of the advantages was that it had belts and a
marvellous arrangement called a "jockey pulley"
to regulate the speed: consequently it ran more
"sweetly" (that was the word he used) than gear-
driven cars, which, according to him, jerk, and are
noisy, break easily, and do all sorts of disagreeable
things.

By the time we were half through lunch I was
envying him his car, and feeling as if life wasn't

4 The Lightning Conductor

worth living, because I couldn't have it to play with.
I asked if I could buy one like it, but he was very
discouraging. He had had his fitted up with lots of
expensive improvements, and it didn't pay the firm
to make cars like that for the public, so I would have
to order one specially, and it might be months before
it could be delivered. I was thinking it rather in-
considerate in him to work me up to such a pitch,
just to cast me down again, when he mentioned, in
an incidental way, that he intended to sell his car,
because he had ordered a racer of forty horse-power.

I jumped at that and said, "Why not sell it to me?''

You ought to have seen Aunt Mary's face! But we
didn't give her time to speak, and gasps are more
effectual as punctuations than interruptions.

Her Duke was too much moved to pause for them.
He hurried to say that he hoped I hadn't misunder-
stood him. The last thought in his mind had been
to "make a deal." Of course, if I really contem-
plated buying a car, I must see a great many different
kinds before deciding. But as it seemed I had never
had a ride on an automobile (your fault, Dad — your
only one!), he would be delighted to take us a little
spin in his car.

Before Aunt Mary could get in a word I had
accepted; for I did want to go. And what is Aunt
Mary for if not to make all the things I want to do
and otherwise couldn't, strictly proper?

Anyhow, we went, and it was heavenly. I know
how a bird feels now, only more so. You know, Dad,
how quickly I make up my mind. I take that from
you, and in our spin through beautiful lanes to a de-

The Lightning Conductor 5

lightful hotel called — just think of it! — the " Hautboy
and Fiddle," at the village of Ockham, I'd had quite
time enough to determine that I wanted the Duke's
car, if it could be got.

I said so; he objected. You've no idea how deli-
cate he was about it, so afraid it might seem that he
had taken advantage. I assured him that, if any-
thing, it was the other way round, and at last he
yielded. The car really is a beauty. You can put
a big trunk on behind, and there are places for tools
and books and lunch, and no end of little things, in
a box under the cushions we sit on, and even under
the floor. You never saw anything so convenient.
He showed me everything, and explained the ma-
chinery, but that part I forgot as fast as he talked,
so I can't tell you now exactly on what principle
the engine works. When it came to a talk about
price I thought he would say two thousand five
hundred dollars at least (that's five hundred pounds,
isn't it?) for such a splendid chariot. I know Jimmy
Payne gave nearly twice that for the one he brought
over to New York last year, and it wasn't half as
handsome; but — would you believe it? — the man
seemed quite shy at naming one thousand five hun-
dred dollars. It was a second-hand car now, he
insisted, though he had only had it three months, and
he wouldn't think of charging more. I felt as if I
were playing the poor fellow a real Yankee trick
When I cried "Done!"

Well, now, Dad, there's my confession. That's all
up to date, except that the Duke, who isn't a duke,
but plain Mr. Reginald Cecil-Lanstown ("plain"

6 The Lightning Conductor

seems hardly the word for all that, does it?) is to
bring my car, late his, to Claridge's on Monday, and
I'm to pay. You dear, to have given me such an
unlimited letter of credit! He's got to get me a
chauffeur who can speak French and knows the Con-
tinent, and Aunt Mary and I will do the rest of our
London shopping on an automobile — my own, if
you please. Then, when we are ready to cross the
Channel, we'll drive to Newhaven, ship the car to
Dieppe, and after that I hope we shan't so much as
see a railroad train, except from a long distance.
Automobiles for ever, say I, mine in particular.

I'm writing this after we have come back to
Cobham, and while we wait for the fly which is to
take us to the station. Aunt Mary says I am mad.
She is quite "off" her Duke now, and thinks he is a
fraud. By the way, when that photo is developed
I'll send it to you, so that you can see your daughter's
new gee-gee. Here comes the cab, so good-bye, you
old saint. From

Your sinner,

MOLLY.

GARLTON HOTEL, LONDON",

November 14.

Dearest,

I've got it; it's mine; bought and paid for.
It's so handsome that even Aunt Mary is mollified.
(I didn't mean that for a pun, but let it pass.) Mr.
Cecil-Lanstown has told me everything I ought to
know (about motor-cars, I mean), and now, after
having tea with us, looking dukier than ever, he has
departed with a roll of your hard-earned money in
his pocket. It's lucky I met him when I did, and
secured the car, for he has been called out of England
on business, is going to-morrow, and seems not to
know when he'll be able to get back. But he says
we may meet in France when he has his big racing
automobile.

The only drawback to my new toy is the chauffeur.
Why "chauffeur" by the way, I wonder? He doesn't
heat anything. On the contrary, if I understand the
matter, it's apparently his duty to keep things cool,
including his own head. This one looks as if he had
had his head on ice for years. He is the gloomiest
man I ever saw, gives you the feeling that he may
burst into tears any minute; but Mr. Cecil-Lans-
town says he is one of the best chauffeurs in England,
and thoroughly understands this particular make of
car. which is German.

8 The Lightning Conductor

The man's name is Rattray. It suits him somehow.
If I were the heroine of a melodrama, I should feel
the minute I set eyes on Rattray that he was the
villain of the piece, and I should hang on like grim
death to any marriage certificates or wills that might
concern me, for I should know it would be his aim
during at least four acts to get possession of them,
He has enormous blue eyes like Easter eggs, and his
ears look something like cactuses, only, thank good-
ness, I'm spared their being green; they wouldn't go
with his complexion. I talked to him and put on
scientific airs, but I'm afraid they weren't effective,
for he hardly said anything, only looked gloomy, and
as if he read "amateur" written on my soul or some-
where where it wasn't supposed to show. He's gone
now to make arrangements for keeping my car in a
garage. He's to bring it round every morning at ten
o'clock, and is to teach me to drive. I won't seal
this letter up till to-morrow then I can tell you how
I like my first lesson.

November 15.

I was proud of the car when I went out on it
yesterday. Aunt Mary wouldn't go, because she
doesn't wish to be the "victim of an experiment."
Rattray drove for a long way, but when we got
beyond the traffic, towards Richmond, I took his
place, and my lesson began. It's harder than I
thought it would be, because you have to do so many
things at once. You really ought to have three or
four hands with this car, Rattray says. When I

The Lightning Conductor 9

asked him if it was different with other cars, he
didn't seem to hear. Already I've noticed that he's
subject to a sort of spasmodic deafness, but I suppose
I must put up with that, as he is such a fine mechanic.
One can't have everything.

With your left hand you have to steer the car by
means of a kind of tiller, and to this is attached the
horn to warn creatures of all sorts that you're coming.
I blow this with my right hand, but Rattray says I
ought to learn to do it while steering with the left, as
there are quantities of other things to be done with
the right hand. First there is a funny little handle
with which you change speeds whenever you come
to a hill; then there is the "jockey-pulley-lever,"
which gives the right tension to the belts (this is
very important) ; the " throttle- valve-lever," on which
you must always keep your hand to control the
speed of the car; and the brake which you jam on
when you want to stop. So there are two things to
do with the left hand, and four things with the right,
and often most of these things must be done at the
same time. No wonder I was confused and got my
hands a little mixed, so that I forgot which was
which, and things went wrong for a second! Just
then a cart was rude enough to come round a corner.
I tried to steer to the right, but went to the left —
and you can't think how many things can happen
with a motor-car in one second.

Now, don't be worried! I wasn't hurt a bit; only
we charged on to the sidewalk, and butted into a
shop. It was my fault, not a bit the car's. If it
weren't a splendid car it would have been smashed to

io The Lightning Conductor

pieces, and perhaps we with it, instead of just break-
ing the front — oh, and the shop too, a little. I shall
have to pay the man something. He's a "haber-
dasher," whatever that is, but it sounds like the sort
of name he might have called me if he'd been very
angry when I broke his window.

The one bad consequence of my stupidity is that
the poor, innocent, sinned-against car must lie up for
repairs. Rattray says they may take some days. In
that case Aunt Mary and I must do our shopping in
a hired brougham — such an anti-climax ; but Rattray
promises that the dear thing shall be ready for our
start to France on the igth. Meanwhile, I shall
console myself for my disappointment by buying an
outfit for a trip— a warm coat, and a mask, and a
hood, and all sorts of tricky little things I've marked
in a perfectly thrilling catalogue.

Now, if you fuss, I shall be sorry I've told you the
truth. Remember the axiom about the bad penny.
That's

Your

MOLLY-

THE HORRIBLE RESTAURANT OF THE BOULE D'OR,
SURESNES, NEAR PARIS,

November 28.

Forgive me, dear, long - suffering - because - you -
couldn't-help-yourself-Dad, for being such a beast
about writing. But I did send you three cables,
didn't I? Aunt Mary would have written, only I
threatened her with unspeakable things if she did.
I knew so well what she would say, and I wouldn't
have it. Now, however, I'm going to tell you the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — no
varnish. Indeed, there isn't much varnish left on
anything.

I wonder if I can make you comprehend the
things I've gone through in the last two or three
days? Why, Dad, I feel old enough to be your
mother. But I'll try and begin at the beginning,
though it seems, to look back, almost before the
memory of man, to say nothing of woman. Let me
see, where is the beginning, when I was still young
and happy? Perhaps it's in our outfit for the trip.
I can dwell upon that with comparative calmness.

Even Aunt Mary was happy. You would have
had to rush out and take your "apoplectic medicine,"
as I used to call it, if you could have seen her trying
different kinds of masks and goggles, and asking

XI

12 The Lightning Conductor

gravely which were most becoming. Thank Heaven
that I've inherited your sense of humour! To that I
have owed my sanity during the last dies ira. (Is
that the way to spell it?)

I wouldn't have the conventional kind of mask,
nor goggles. Seeing Aunt Mary in her armour
saved me from that. I bought what they call a
41 toilet mask," which women vainer than I wear at
night to preserve their complexions. This was only
for a last resort on very dusty days, to be hidden
from sight by a thin, grey veil, as if I were a modern
prophet of Korassan.

We got dust-grey cloaks, waterproof cloth on the
outside, and lined with fur. Aunt Mary invested in
a kind of patent helmet, with curtains that unfurl
on the sides, to cover the ears; and I found myself
so fetching in a hood that I bought one, as well as a
toque, to provide for all weathers. Then we got a
fascinating tea-basket, foot- warmers that burn char-
coal, and had two flat trunks made on purpose to
fit the back of the car, with tarpaulin covers to take
on and off. Our big luggage we planned to send to
places where we wanted to make a long stay; but
we would have enough with us to make us feel self-
contained and independent.

We did look ship-shape when we started from the
" Carlton " on the morning of November igth, with
our luggage strapped on behind, the foot- warmers
and tea-basket on the floor, our umbrellas in a hang-
ing-basket contrivance, a fur-lined waterproof rug
over Aunt Mary's knees and mine. I'd taken no
more lessons since that first day I wrote you about,

The Lightning Conductor 13

owing to the car not being ready until the night
before our start, so Rattray sat in front alone, Aunt
Mary and I together behind.

We meant to have got off about eight, as we had
to drive over fifty miles to Newhaven, where the car
was to be shipped that night; but Rattray had a
little difficulty in starting the car, and we were half
an hour late, which was irritating, especially as a
good many people were waiting to see us off. At
last, however, we shot away in fine style, which
checked Aunt Mary in the middle of her thirty-
second sigh.

All went well for a couple of hours. We were out
in the country — lovely undulating English country.
The car, which Mr. Cecil-Lanstown had said was
beyond all others as a hill-climber, was justifying
its reputation, as I had confidently expected it
would. The air was cold, but instead of making
one shiver, our blood tingled with exhilaration as we
flew along. You know what a chilly body Aunt
Mary is? Even she didn't complain of the weather,
and hardly needed her foot-warmer "This is life!"
said I to myself. It seemed to me that I'd never
known the height of physical pleasure until I'd
driven in a motor-car. It was better than dancing
on a perfect floor with a perfect partner to pluperfect
music; better than eating when you're awfully
hungry; better than holding out your hands to afire
when they're numb with cold; better than a bath after
a hot, dusty railway journey. I can't give it higher
praise, can I? — and I did wish for you. I thought
you would be converted. Oh, my wwprophetic soul !

14 The Lightning Conductor

Suddenly, sailing up a steep hill at about ten miles
an hour, the car stopped, and would have run back
if Rattray hadn't put on the brakes. "What's the
matter?" said I, while Aunt Mary convulsively
clutched my arm.

"Only a belt broken, miss," he returned gloomily.
"Means twenty minutes' delay, that's all. Sorry I
must trouble you ladies to get up. New belts and
belt-fasteners under your seat. Tools under the
floor." »

We were relieved to think it was no worse, and
reminded ourselves that we had much to be thankful
for, while we disarranged our comfortably established
selves. There were the tea-basket and the foot-
warmers to be lifted from the floor and deposited on
Rattray's vacant front seat, the big rug to be got rid
of, our feet to be put up while the floor-board was
lifted, then we had to stand while the cushions were
pulled off the seat and the lid of the box raised. We,
or at least I, tried to think it was part of the fun;
but it was a little depressing to hear Rattray grunt-
ing and grumbling to himself as he unstrapped the
luggage, hoisted it off the back of the car so that
he could get at the broken belt inside, and plumped
it down viciously on the dusty road.

The delay was nearer half an hour than twenty
minutes, and it seemed extra long because it was a
strain entertaining Aunt Mary to keep her from
saying " I told you so ! " But we had not gone two
miles before our little annoyance was forgotten.
That is the queer part about automobiling. You're
BO happy when all's going well that you forget past

The Lightning Conductor 15

misadventures, and feel joyously hopeful that you
will never have any more.

We got on all right until after lunch, which we ate
at a lovely inn close to George Meredith's house.
Then it took half an hour to start the car again.
Rattray looked as if he were going to burst. Just to
watch him turning that handle in vain made me feel
as if elephants had walked over me. He said the
trouble was that "the compression was too strong,"
and that there was "back-firing" — whatever that
means. Just as I was giving up hope the engine
started off with a rush, and we were on the way
again through the most soothingly pretty country.
About four o'clock, in the midst of a glorious spin,
there was a "r-r-r-tch," the car swerved to one side,
Aunt Mary screamed, and we stopped dead. "Chain
broken," snarled Rattray.

Up we had to jump once more: tea-basket, foot-
warmers, rugs, ourselves, everything had to be hustled
out of the way for Rattray to get at the tools and
spare chains which we carried in the box under our
seats. I began to think perhaps the car wasn't quite
so conveniently arranged for touring as I had fancied,
but I'd have died sooner than say so — then. 1 pre-
tended that this was a capital opportunity for tea, so
opened the tea-basket, and we had quite a picnic by
the roadside while Rattray fussed with the chain.
It wasn't very cold, and I looked forward to many
similar delightful halts in a warmer climate "by the
banks of the brimming Loire," as I put it jauntily to
Aunt Mary. But she only said, " I'm sure I hope so.
my dear," in a tone more chilling than the weather.

16 The Lightning Conductor

It was at least half an hour before Rattray had the
chain properly fixed, and then there was the usual
difficulty in starting. Once the handle flew round
and struck him on the back of the hand. He yelled,
kicked one of the wheels, and went to the grassy side
of the road, where in the dusk I could dimly see him
holding his hand to his mouth and rocking backwards
and forwards. He did look so like a distracted goblin
that I could hardly steady my voice to ask if he was
much hurt. " Nearly broke my hand, that's all, miss,"
he growled. At last he flew at the terrible handle
again, managed to start the motor, and we were off.

Going up a hill in a town that Rattray said was
called Lewes, I noticed that the car didn't seem to
travel with its customary springy vigour. "Loss of
power," Rattray jerked at me over his shoulder when
I questioned him as to what was the matter, and
there I had to leave it, wondering vaguely what he
meant. I think he lost the way in Lewes (it was
now quite dark, with no stars); anyhow, we made
many windings, and at last came out into a plain
between dim, chalky hills, with a shining river faintly
visible. Aunt Mary had relapsed into expressive
silence; the car seemed to crawl like a wounded
thing; but at last we got to Newhaven pier, and had
our luggage carried on board the boat. Rattray was
to follow with the car in the cargo-boat. So ended
the "lesson for the first day" — a ten-hour lesson —
and I felt sadder as well as wiser for it.

Aunt Mary went to sleep as soon as we got on the
boat; but I was so excited at the thought of seeing
France that I stayed on deck, wrapped in the warm

The Lightning Conductor 17

coat I'd bought for the car. We had a splendid
crossing, and as we got near Dieppe I could see chalfe
cliffs and a great gaunt crucifix on the pier leading
into the harbour. It seemed as if I were in a dream
when I heard people chattering French quite as a
matter of course to each other, and I liked the
douaniers, the smart soldiers, and the railway porters
in blue blouses. It was four in the morning when,
we landed. Of course, it was the dead season at
Dieppe, but we got in at a hotel close to the sea.
It was lovely waking up, rather late, one's very first
day in France, looking out of the window at the
bright water and the little fishing-boats, with their
red-brown sails, and smelling a really heavenly scent
of strong coffee and fresh-baked rolls.

Later in the morning I walked round to the har-
bour to find that the cargo-boat had arrived, and
that Rattray and the car had been landed. The
creature actually greeted me with smiles. Now
for the first time he was a comfort. He did every-
thing, paid the deposit demanded by the custom-
house, and got the necessary papers. Then he drove
me back to the hotel, but as it was about midday I
thought that it would be nicer to start for Paris the
next day, when I hoped we could have a long, clear
run. In Paris, of course, Aunt Mary and I wanted
to stay for at least a week. Rattray promised to
thoroughly overhaul the car, so that there need be
no "incidents" on the way.

There was a crowd round us next morning — a
friendly, good-natured little crowd — when we were
getting ready to start in the stable-yard of the hoteL

1 8 The Lightning Conductor

Our landlady was there, a duck of a woman; lha
hotel porters in green baize aprons stood and stared;
some women washing clothes at a trough in the
corner stopped their work; and a lot of funny, wee
schoolboys, with short cropped hair and black blouses
with leather belts, buzzed round, gesticulating and
trying to explain the mechanism of the car to each
other. Rattray bustled about with an oil-can in his
hand, then loaded up our luggage, and all was ready.
With more dignity than confidence I mounted to the
high seat beside Aunt Mary. This time, with one
turn of the handle, the motor started, so contrary is
this strange beast, the automobile. One day you toil
at the starting-handle half an hour, the next the thing
comes to life with a touch, and nobody can explain
why. Bowing to madame and the hotel people, we
sailed gracefully out of the hotel yard, Rattray too-
tooing a f anf arronade on the horn. It was a splendid
start!

The streets of Dieppe are of those horrid uneven
•tones that the French call pav£, and our car jolted
over them with as much noise and clatter as if we'd
had a cargo of dishes. You see the car's very solidly
built and heavy — that, said Mr. Cecil-Lanstown, is
one of its merits. It is of oak, an inch thick, and
you can't break it. Another thing in its favour is
that it has solid tyres, and not those horrid pneu-
matics, which are always bursting and puncturing,
and give no end of trouble. " With solid tyres you
are always safe," said Mr. Cecil-Lanstown. I can't
help thinking, though, that on roads like these of
Dieppe it would be soothing to have "pneus," as they

The Lightning Conductor 19

call thein. Jingle, jingle! scrunch, scrunch! goes the
machinery inside, and all the loose parts of the car.
It did get on my nerves.

But soon we were out of the town and on one of
the smoothest roado you ever saw. Rattray said it
was a "route nationale," and that they are the best
roads in the world. The car bounded along as if it
were on a billiard-table. Even Aunt Mary said,

"Now, if it were always like this " My spirits

went up, up. I proudly smiled and bowed to the
peasants in their orchards by the roadsides. I was
even inclined to pat Rattray on the shoulder of his
black leather coat. This, this was life! The sun
shone, the fresh air sang in our ears, the car ran as if
it had the strength of a giant. I felt as independent
as a gipsy in his caravan, only we were travelling at
many times his speed. The country seemed to unfold
just like a panorama. At each turn I looked for an
adventure.

We skimmed through a delicious green country
given up to enormous orchards which, Aunt Mary
read out of a guide-book, yield the famous cidre de
Normandie. I thought of the lovely pink dress this
land would wear by-and-by, and then suddenly we
came out from a small road on to a broad, winding
one, and there was a wide view over waving country,
•with a white town like a butterfly that had fluttered
into a bird's nest. Rattray let the car go down this
long road towards the valley at something like thirty
miles an hour, and Aunt Mary's hand had nervously
grasped the rail when there came a kind of sigh inside
the car, and it paused to rest.

2O The Lightning Conductor

Rattray jumped off and made puzzled inspection.
" Can't see anything wrong, miss; must take off
the luggage and look inside." It is a> peculiarity that
every working part is hidden modestly under the
body of the car. This protects them from wet and
dust, Mr. Cecil-Lanstown told me; "but it seems a
little inconvenient to have to haul off all the luggage
every time you want to examine the machinery. It
didn't take long to find out what was the matter.
The " aspiration pipe," Rattray said, had worked loose
(no doubt through the jolting over the Dieppe pavt)
and the "vapour couldn't get from the carburetter
to the explosion chamber."

I only partly understood, but I felt that the poor
car wasn't to blame. How could it be expected to
go on without aspirating? There was "no spanner
to fit the union," and Rattray darkly hinted at further
trouble. Three little French boys with a go-cart had
come to stare. I Kodaked them and send you their
picture in this letter as a sort of punctuation to my
• complaints.

Well, when Rattray had screwed up the "union"
as well as he could (isn't that what our statesmen did
after the .confederate war?), off we started again,
bustled through the town in the valley (which I found
from Murray was Neufchatel-en-Bray), and had a
consoling run through beautiful country until, at
noon, we shot into the market-place of Forges les
Eaux. It was market-day, and we drove at a walk-
ing pace through the crowded place, all alive with
booths, the cackling of turkeys, and the lowing of
cows. There seemed to be only one decent inn. and

The Lightning Conductor 21

the salle a manger was full of loud-talking peasants,
with shrewd, brown, wrinkled faces like masks, who
"ate out loud," as I used to say.

The place was so thronged that Rattray had to sit
at the same table with us, and though as a good
democrat I oughtn't to have minded, I did squirm a
little, for his manners — well, "they're better not to
dwell on." But the luncheon was good, so French
and so cheap. We hurried over it, but it took
Rattray half an hour to replenish the tanks of the
car with water (of course he had to lift down the
luggage to do this) and to oil the bearings. We
sailed out of Forges les Eaux so bravely that my
hopes went up. It seemed certain we should be in
Paris quite in good time, but almost as soon as we
had got out of the town one of the chains glided
gracefully off on to the road.

You'd think it the simplest thing in the world to
slip it on again, but that was just what it wasn't.
Rattray worked over it half an hour (everything
takes half an hour to do on this car, I notice, when
it doesn't take more), saying things under his breath
which Aunt Mary was too deaf and I too dignified
to hear. Finally I was driven to remark waspishly,
"You'd be a bad soldier; a good soldier makes the
best of things, and bears them like a man. You
make the worst."

"That's all very well, miss," retorted my gloomy
goblin; "but soldiers have to fight men, not beasts."

"They get killed sometimes," said I.

"There's things makes a man want to die," groaned
he. And that silenced me, even though I heard a

22 The Lightning Conductor

ceaseless mumbling about "every bloomin' screw
being loose; that he'd engaged as a mechanic, not a
car-maker; that if he was a car-maker, he was
hanged if he'd disgrace himself making one of this
sort, anyhow."

You'll think I'm exaggerating, but I vow we had
not gone more than ten miles further before that
chain broke again. This time I believe Rattray shed
tears. As for Aunt Mary, her attitude was that of
cold, Christian resignation. She had sacrificed her-
self to me, and would continue to do so, since such
was her Duty, with a capital D; indeed, she had
expected this, and from the first she had told me,
etc., etc. At last the chain was forced on again and
fastened with a new bolt. We sped forward for a
few deceitful moments, but — detail is growing
monotonous. After that something happened to the
car, on the average, every hour. Chains snapped or
came off; if belts didn't break, they were too short
or too long. Mysterious squeaks made themselves
heard; the crank-head got hot (what head wouldn't?),
and we had to wait until it thought fit to cool, a
process which could scarcely be accelerated by Rat-
tray's language. He now announced that this make
of car, and my specimen in particular, was tlie vilest
in the automobile world. If a worse could be made,
it did not yet exist! When I ventured to inquire
why he had not expressed this opinion before leaving
London, he announced that it was not his business
to express opinions, but to drive such vehicles as he
was engaged to drive. I hoped that there must be
something wrong with the automobile which Rattray

The Lightning Conductor 23

didn't understand; that in Paris I could have it put
right, and that even yet all might go well. For a
few miles we went with reasonable speed, and no
mishaps; but half-way up a long, long hill the
mystic "power" vanished once more, and there we
were stranded nearly opposite a forge, from which
strolled three huge, black-faced men, adorned with
pitying smiles.

"Hire them to push," I said despairingly to Rat-
tray, and as he turned a sulky back to obey, I heard
a whirring sound, and an automobile flew past us up
the steep hill, going about fifteen miles an hour.
That did seem the last straw; and with hatred,
malice, and all uncharitableness in my breast, I was
shaking my fist after the thing, when it stopped
politely.

There were two men in it, both in leather caps and
coats — I noticed that half unconsciously. Now one
of them jumped out and came walking back to us.
Taking off his cap, he asked me with his eyes and
Aunt Mary with his voice — in English — if there was
anything he could do. He was very good-looking,
and spoke nicely, like a gentleman, but he seemed so
successful that I couldn't help hating him and wish-
ing he would go away. The only thing I wanted was
that he and the other man and their car should be
specks in the distance when Rattray came back with
his blacksmiths to push us up the hill; so I thanked
him hurriedly, and said we didn't need help. Per-
haps I said it rather stiffly, I was so wild to have
him gone. He stood for a minute as if he would
have liked to say something else, but didn't know

24 The Lightning Conductor

how, then bowed, and went back to his car. In a
minute it was shooting up hill again, and I never was
gladder at anything in my life than when I saw it
disappear over the top — only just in time too, for it
wasn't out of sight when our three blacksmiths had
their shoulders to the task.

"There's a good car, if you like, miss," said that
fiend Rattray. "It's a Napier. Some pleasure in
driving that."

I could have boxed his ears.

Once on level ground again, the car seemed to
recover a little strength. But night fell when we
were still a long way from Paris, and our poor oil-
lamps only gave light enough to make darkness
visible, so that we daren't travel at high speed.
There were uncountable belt-breakings and heart-
achings before at last, after eleven at night, we
crawled through the barriers of Paris and mounted
up the Avenue de la Grande Arme'e to the Arc de
Triomphe. We drove straight to the Elyse"e Palace
Hotel, and let Rattray take the brute beast to a
garage, which I wished had been a slaughter-house.

I couldn't sleep that night for thinking that I was
actually in Paris, and for puzzling what to do next,
since it was clear it would be no use going on with
the car unless some hidden ailment could be dis-
covered and rectified. Our plan had been to stop in
Paris for a week, and then drive on to the beautiful
chateau country of the Loire that I've always
dreamed of seeing. Afterwards, I thought we might
go across country to the Riviera; but now, unless
light suddenly shone out of darkness, all that was

The Lightning Conductor 25

knocked on the head. What was my joy, then, in
the morning, when Rattray came and deigned to
inform me that he had found out the cause of the
worst mischief! "The connecting-rod that worked
the magnet had got out of adjustment, and so the
timing of the explosions was wrong." This could
be made right, and he would see to the belts and
chains. In a few days we might be ready to get
away, with some hope of better luck.

I was so pleased I gave him a louis. Afterwards
I wished I hadn't — but that's a detail. I sent you a
cable, just saying, you'll remember: "Elyse"e Palace
for a week; all well"; and Aunt Mary and I pro-
ceeded to drown our sorrows by draughts of un-
diluted Paris.

Crowds of Americans were at the hotel, a good
many I knew; but Aunt Mary and I kept dark
about the automobile — very different from that time
in London, where I was always swaggering around
talking of "my motor-car" and the trip I meant to
take. Poor little me!

Mrs. Tom van Wyck was there, and she introduced
me to an Englishwoman, Lady Brighthelmstone, a
viscountess, or something, and you pronounce her
"Lady Brighton." She's near-sighted and looks at
you through a lorgnette, which is disconcerting, and
makes you feel as if your features didn't match
properly; but she turned out to be rather nice, and
said she hoped we'd see each other at Cannes, where
she's going immediately. She expects her son to join
her there. He's touring now on his motor-car, and
expects to meet her and some friends on the Riviera

26 The Lightning Conductor

in about a fortnight. Mrs. van Wyck told me he's
the Honourable John Winston, and a very nice fellow,
but I grudge him an automobile, which goes.

I just couldn't write to you that week in Paris ; not
that I was too busy — I'm never too busy to write to
my dear old boy. But I knew you'd expect to hear
how I enjoyed the trip, and I didn't want to tell you
the bad news till perhaps I might have good news to
add. Consequently I cabled whenever a writing-day
came round.

Well, at last Rattray vowed that the car was in
good condition, and we might start. It was a whole
week since I'd seen the monster, and it looked so
handsome as it sailed up to the hotel door that my
pride in it came back. It was early in the morning,
so there weren't many people about, but I shouldn't
have had cause to be ashamed if there had been.
We went off in fine style, and it was delicious driving
through the Bois, en route for Orleans, by way of
Versailles. After all, I said to myself, perhaps the
car hadn't been to blame for our horrid experience.
No car was perfect, even Rattray admitted that.
Some little thing had gone wrong with ours, and the
poor thing had been misunderstood.

We had traversed the Bois, and were mounting
the long hill of Suresnes, when " squeak! squeak ! " a
little insinuating sound began to mingle with my
reflections. I was too happy, with the sweet wind
in my face, to pay attention at first, but the noise
kept on, insisting on being noticed. Then it occurred
to me that I'd heard it before in moments of baleful
memory.

The Lightning Conductor 27

"I believe that horrid crank-head is getting hot,"
said I. "Are you sure it doesn't need oil? "

" Sure, miss," returned Rattray. "The crank-head's
all right. That ' squeak ain't anything to worry
about."

So I didn't worry, and we bowled along for twenty
perfect minutes, then something went smash inside,
and we stopped dead. It was the, crank-head, which
was nearly red hot. The crank had snapped like a
carrot. I was too prostrate, and, I trust, too proud
to say things to Rattray, though if he had just made
sure that the lubricator was working properly, we
should have been saved.

Fortunately we had lately passed a big garage by
the Pont de Suresnes, and we "coasted" to it down
the hill, although of course our engine was paralysed.
You couldn't expect it to work without a head, even
though that head was only a "crank! "

For once Rattray was somewhat subdued. He
knew he was in fault, and meekly proposed to take an
electric tram back to Paris, there to see if a new crank
could be bought to fit, otherwise one would have
to be made, and it would take two or three days.
At this I remarked icily that in the latter case we
would not proceed with the trip, and he could return
to London. Usually he retorted, if I showed the slight-
est sign of disapproval, but now he merely asked if
I would give him the money to buy the new crank if
it were obtainable.

I had only a couple of louis in change and a five-
hundred franc note, so I gave that to him, and he was
to return as soon as possible, probably in an hour

28 The Lightning Conductor

and a half. Aunt Mary and I found our way gloom-
ily to a little third-class restaurant, where we had
coffee and things. Time crept on and brought no
Rattray. When two hours had passed I walked
back to the garage, but the proprietor had no news.
The car was standing is. the place where they had
dragged it, and I climbed up to sit in gloomy state
on the back seat, feeling as if I couldn't bear to go
back to Aunt Mary until something had happened.
Then something did happen, but not the thing I had
wanted. The very car that had stopped when we
were in trouble on the hill of the blacksmiths, far on
the other side of Paris, more than a week ago, came
gliding smoothly, deliciously into the garage.

The same two leather-capped and coated men
were in it, master and chauffeur, I thought. The
madame of the establishment was talking sympa-
thetically to me, but I heard the voice of the man
who had asked me if he could help (the one I had
taken for the master) inquiring in French for a par-
ticular kind of essence. Then I didn't hear any
more. He and the garage man were speaking in
lower tones, and besides, the shrill condolences of
madame drowned their murmurs. She was loudly
giving it as her opinion that my chauffeur had run
off with my money, and that, unless I had some
means of tracing him, I should never look upon his
face again. I did wish that she would be quiet, at
least until the fortunate automobilists rolled away
like kings in their chariot; but I couldn't make her
stop, and I was certain they heard every word. I
even imagined that they had deserted the subject of

The Lightning Conductor 29

petrol for my troubles, because I could see out of a
corner of an eye that the proprietor in his conversa-
tion with them nodded more than once towards my
car, in which I sat ingloriously enthroned like a sort
of captive Zenobia.

They seemed to be a long time buying their petrol,
anyway, and presently my worst fears were confirmed.
The man who had spoken to me on the fatal hill
came forward, repeating himself (like history) by
taking off his cap and wearing exactly the same
half-shy, half-interested expression as before.

He said "er" once or twice, and then informed
me that the proprietor had been telling him what
a scrape I was in, or words to that effect. He
offered to drive into Paris on his car, which would
only take a few minutes, go to the place where my
chauffeur had intended to buy the crank, see whether
lie had been there, and if so, what delayed him.
Then, if anything were wrong, he would come back
and let me know.

I said that I couldn't possibly let him take so
much trouble, but he would hardly listen. He knew
the address of the place from the garage man, who
had recommended it to Rattray, and almost before
I knew what had happened the car and the dusty,
leather-clad men were off.

There was nothing for me to do but to go back
to Aunt Mary, which I did in no happy frame of
mind.

That Napier must have tossed its bonnet at the
legal limit of speed, for in less than an hour it drew
up before this restaurant. Out jumped my one of

30 The Lightning Conductor

the two men and came into the room where Aunt
Mary and I had sat so long reading old French
papers.

" I'm sorry to have to tell you," said he in his nice
voice, "that your man appears to be a scoundrel.
He hasn't been to Le Sage's, nor to another place
which I tried. I'm afraid he has gone off with your
money, and that your only hope of getting it will be
to track the fellow with a detective."

" I don't want to track him," I said. " I never
want to see him again, and I don't care about the
money. I'll engage another chauffeur. There must
be plenty in Paris."

As I said this he had rather a curious look on
his face. I didn't understand it then, but I did
afterwards. "I'm afraid you'll find very few who
understand your make of car," he said, "which is
German, and — er — perhaps not up to the very latest
date."

" I can believe anything of it," said I. " But now
the crank's broken, and "

" I've taken the liberty of bringing another, which
we took out of a similar car," broke in the man.
"The proprietor of the garage across the way thinks
he can put it in for you; if not, I can help him, for
I once drove a car of the same make as yours, and
have reason to remember it."

I burst into thanks, and when I had used up most
of my prettiest adjectives I asked how long the
work would take. He thought only a few hours,
and my car might be ready to start again in the
afternoon.

The Lightning Conductor 31

I clapped my hands at this; then I could feel my
face fall. (Funny expression, isn't it? — almost as
absurd as I "dropped my eyes"; but I think I did
that too.) "How lovely!" said I. And then, "But
what good if I can't get a chauffeur ? "

The man's face grew red — not a bricky, ugly red;
but as he was very brown already, it only turned
a nice mahogany colour, and made him look quite
engaging. "If you would take me," he said, "I am
at your service."

I never was more astonished in my life, and I just
sat and stared at him. I was sure he must be making
fun.

"Of course you'll think it strange," he went on in
a hurry; "but the fact is, I'm out of a job "

"Why, are you a real chauffeur — a mechanic?"
I couldn't help breaking in on him. I almost blurted
out that I had taken him for the master, which
would have been horrid, of course, and suddenly
I was ashamed of myself, for I had been treating
him exactly like an equal; and perhaps I was silly
enough to be a tiny bit disappointed too, for I'll
confess to you, Dad, that I'd had visions of his being
someone rather grand, which would have spread a
little jam of romance over the stale, dry bread of
this disagreeable experience. Anyhow, this man was
much better looking than his companion, whom I
knew now was the master. He wasn't a gorgeous
person, like" Mr. Cecil-Lanstown, but I'd certainly
thought he had rather a distinguished air. However,
these Englishmen, even the peasants, are sometimes
such splendid types — clear-cut features, brave, keen

32 The Lightning Conductor

eyes, and all that, you know, as if their ancestors
might have been Vikings.

While I was thinking, he was telling me that he
was a chauffeur, sure enough, and that this was the
last day of his engagement with his master, who
didn't wish to take a mechanic any farther. His
name, he said, was James Brown. He had had a
good deal of experience with several kinds of cars —
my sort was the first he'd ever driven; he knew it
well, and if I cared to try him, he could get me a very
good reference from his master, Mr. "Winston.

"Mr. Winston! " I repeated. "Is your master the
Honourable John Winston?"

"That is his name," he answered, though he
looked so odd when he said it that I thought it
wise to mention that I knew Mr. Winston's mother,
so he would have a sort of warning if he weren't
speaking the truth. But he didn't look like a man
who would tell fibs, and to cut a long story short,
he brought out a letter which the Honourable John
Winston had already given him. It was very short,
as if it had been written in a hurry, but nothing
could have been more satisfactory. Brown, as I
suppose I must call him, said that he would be
able to start with us as soon as the car was ready,
and when I mentioned where I wanted to go he
remarked that he had been all through the chateau
country several times on a motor-car. One can see
from the way he talks that he's an intelligent, com-
petent young man (he can't be more than twenty-
eight or nine) and knows his business thoroughly.
I think I'm very lucky to get him, don't you?

The Lightning Conductor 33

Now you will understand the address at the top
of this long letter; and I am writing it while James
Brown and the garage man fit the new crank into
the car. I must have been scribbling away for two
hours, so almost any minute my new chauffeur may
arrive to say that we can start. I shall write again
soon to tell you how he turns out, and all about
things in general; and when I don't write I'll cable.
Your battered but hopeful

MOLLY.

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

ORLEANS, November 29.
My dear Montie,

I have so many things to tell you I scarcely
know where to begin. First let me announce that
I am in for an adventure — a real flesh and blood
adventure into which I plump without premeditation,
but an adventure of so delightful a kind that I hope
it may continue for many a day. I know you'll say
at once, "That means "Woman"; and you're right.
But I won't go to the heart of the story at once;
I'll begin at the beginning. First, though, a word as
to yourself. I miss you enormously. It is a cruel
stroke of fate that you should have been ordered
to Davos after you had made all your plans to go
with me on my new car to the Riviera. I still think
that a trip on which you would have been in the
open air all day was just as likely to check incipient
chest trouble as the cold dryness of Davos; but no
doubt you were right to do as the doctors told you.
I shall look eagerly for letters from you with bulle-
tins of your progress. As I can't have you with me,
the next best thing will be to write to you often;
besides, you said that you would like to have fre-
quent reports of my doings in France, with "plenty
of detail."

The Lightning Conductor 35

Well, the new car is a stunner. I haven't so far
a fault to find with her. She takes most hills on the
third, which is very good; for though we are only
two up — Almond and I — I have luggage in the
tonneau almost equal to the weight of another
passenger. Between Dieppe and Paris she licked up
the kilometres as a running flame licks up dry wood.
She runs sweetly and with hardly any noise. The
ignition seems to work perfectly; she carries water
and petrol enough for 150 miles. I think at last
in the Napier I have found the ideal car, and you
know I have searched long enough. Almond timed
her on the level bit at Acheres, and it was at the rate
of over forty-five miles an hour — not bad for a
touring car.

It was between Dieppe and Paris (somewhere
between Gisors and Mem) that the adventure began.
I was flying up a slope of perhaps one in fifteen,
when I became aware of Beauty in Distress. An
antediluvian car, which was recognisable by its
rearward protuberance as something archaic, was
stationary on the hill; two ladies sat on an extraor-
dinarily high seat behind like a throne, and a me-
chanic was slouching towards a smith's forge by
the roadside. One motorist, of course, must always
offer help to another — to pass a stranded car would
be like ignoring signals of distress at sea; besides,
one of the ladies looked young and seemed to have
a charming figure. So, having passed them, I pulled
up and went back.

The ladies said "America" to me as plainly as
if they had spoken. They were most professionally

36 The Lightning Conductor

got up, the elder so befurred and goggled that I could
see only the tip of her nose; the younger with a
wonderfully fetching grey fur coat, a thing that
I believe women call a "toque," and a double veil,
which allowed only a tantalising hint of a piquant
profile and a pair of bewildering grey eyes. They —
or rather the younger one — met my profferred help
with a rather curt refusal, but the voice that uttered
it was musical to a point rare among the American
women of the eastern States, and these were New
York or nowhere. There was nothing for me to do
except retire; but Almond, looking back as we sped
away, said, "Why, sir, blowed if they haven't got
those three smiths pushing them up the hill ! " From
which I argued that Beauty was very jealous for the
reputation of her car. This is the end of Chapter I.
Chapter II. opens at Suresnes, some days later. I
was starting for Cannes, and had just crossed the
bridge when, in the yard of a garage on the left-hand
side at the foot of the hill, I detected again Beauty
in Distress — the same Beauty, but a different Distress.
There was the high and portly car, with Beauty
perched up in it alone — Beauty in the attitude
appropriate to Patience smiling at Grief. Almost
before I knew what I did, I turned my car into the
yard and pulled up near her, making an excuse of
asking for Stelline, though, as a matter of fact,
Almond had filled up the tank only half an hour
before at the Automobile Club. The manager of
the garage told me that Beauty's car was stranded
with a broken crank. Now Almond had caught
sight of her mtcanicien the previous time we met,

The Lightning Conductor 37

and knew him for a wrong tin in London; therefore
when I heard he had gone off to Paris with five
hundred francs to buy a new crank, I thought the
situation serious. So, despite the former snub, I
again offered my services.

SHE had her veil up, and, by Jove! she was good
to look upon! The eyes were deep and candid; the
curve of the red lips (a little subdued now) suggested
a delightful sense of humour; her brown hair rippled
over the ears and escaped in curly tendrils on her
white neck. The girl was delicately balanced, finely
wrought, tempered like a sword-blade. Something
in my inner workings seemed to cry out with pleas-
ure at her perfections; a very unusual nervousness
got hold of me when I spoke to her.

It ended in my flying off to the Avenue de la
Grande Armee to search for the missing man and
another crank. You remember my earliest auto-
mobile experiences were with a Benz, as so many
people's have been, and I knew where to go. Noth-
ing had been heard of the man; I bribed a fellow to
take a crank out of another car, and on the way
back a wild idea occurred to me. I was obliged to
sketch it to the astonished Almond, commanded
him to deadly secrecy, then offered my own services
'to the beautiful American girl in place of her former
chauffeur, absconded. The whole thing came into
my mind in a flash as I was spinning through the
Bois, and I hadn't time to think of the difficulties
in which I might get landed. I only felt that this
was the prettiest girl I had ever seen, and deter-
mined at any price to see a good deal more of her.

38 The Lightning Conductor

Only one way of doing that occurred to me. I
couldn't say to her, "I am Mr. John Winston, a
perfectly respectable person. I have been seized
with a strong and sudden admiration for your
beauty. Will you let rne go with you on your trip
through France?" Even an American girl would
have been staggered at that. The situation called
for an immediate decision — either I was to lose the
girl, or resort to a trick. You quite see how it was,
don't you?

In the first instant there came a complication.
I had stopped my car a minute in the Bois to scrib-
ble a character for my new self — James Brown,
from my old self — John Winston; but as soon as I
presented this piece of writing to back up my appli-
cation for the place, Miss Molly Randolph (I may
as well give you her name) exclaimed that she knew
my mother. Such is life! It seems they met in
Paris. But the die was cast, and she engaged me.
I trusted the Napier to Almond, giving him general
instructions to keep as near to us as he could, with-
out letting himself be seen, and for the last two days
I have been chauffeur, mecanicien, call it what you
will, to the most charming girl in this exceedingly
satisfactory world.

By this time I know that your eyes are wide open.
I can picture you stretched in your chaise longue at
Davos in the sunshine reading this and whistling
softly to yourself. I have no time to write more
to-night; the rest must wait.

Your very sincere and excited friend,

JACK WINSTON.

HOTEL DE LONDRES, AMBOISE,

December 3

My dear Montie,

The plot thickens. She is Superb. But things
are happening which I didn't foresee, and which 1
don't like. I have to suppress a Worm, and sup-
pressed he shall be. I am writing this letter to you
in my bedroom. It is three in the morning, and a
lovely night — more like spring than winter. Through
my wide-open window the only sound that comes in
is the lapping of the lazy Loire against the piers
of the great stone bridge. I have not been to bed;
I shall not go to bed, for I have something to do
when dawn begins. Though I have worked hard
to-day, I am not tired; I am too excited for fatigue.
But I must give you a sketch of what has happened
during the last few days. It is a comfort and a
pleasure to me to be able to unburden myself to
your sympathetic heart. You will read what I write
with patience, I 'know, and with interest, I hope.
That you will often smile, I am sure.

I sent you a line from Orleans, telling you that
I had got myself engaged as chauffeur to Miss Molly
Randolph at Suresnes. Well, the garage man and
I managed to fit the new crank into my lovely em-
ployer's abominable car, and about three or four in
the afternoon we were ready to take the road. As

30

4O The Lightning Conductor

I tucked the rug round the ladies Miss Randolph
threw me an appealing look. "My aunt," she said,
"declares that it is quite useless to go on, as she is
sure we shall never get anywhere. But it is a good
car, isn't it, Brown, and we shall get to Tours, shan't
we?" "It's a great car, miss," I said quite truth-
fully and very heartily. "With this car I'd guar-
antee to take you comfortably all round Europe."
Heaven knows that this boast was the child of hope
rather than experience; but it would have been too
maddening to have the whole thing knocked on the
head at the beginning by the fears of a timorous
elderly lady. "You hear, Aunt Mary, what Brown
says," said the girl, with the air of one who brings
an argument to a close, and I hastened to start the
car.

By Jove ! The compression was strong ! I wasn't
prepared for it after the simple twist of the hand,
which is all that is necessary to start the Napier,
and the recoil of the starting-handle nearly broke
my wrist. But I got the engine going with the
second try, jumped to my place in front of the
ladies (you understand that it is a phaeton-seated
car), and started very gingerly up the hill. Though
I was once accustomed to a belt-driven Benz (you
remember my little 3^- horse-power "halfpenny
Benz," as I came to call it), that had the ordinary
fast and loose pulleys, while this German monstros-
ity is driven by a jockey-pulley, an appliance fiend'
ishly contrived, as it seemed to me, especially for
breaking belts quickly. The car too is steered by
a tiller worked with the left hand, and there are so

The Lightning Conductor 41

many different levers to manipulate that to drive the
thing properly one ought to be a modern Briareus.

I must say, though, that the thing has power. It
bumbled in excellent style on the second speed up
the long hill of Suresnes; but when we got to the
level and changed speeds, I put the jockey on a
trifle too quickly, and snick! went the belt. I was
awfully anxious that my new mistress shouldn't think
me a duffer, that she shouldn't lose confidence in her
car and me, and determine to bring her tour to an
abrupt end; so as soon as I felt the snap I turned
round saying it was only a broken belt that could be
mended in no time. She smiled delightfully. "How
nice of you to take it so well ! " she said. "Rattray
seemed to think that when a belt broke the end of
the world had come." v.

Now to mend a belt seems the easiest thing going,
and so it is when you merely have to hammer a fas-
tening through it and turn the ends over. But in
this car you have to make the joint with coils of
twisted wire. Simple as it is to do in a workshop,
this belt-mending is a most irritating affair by the
roadside, and when done I found by subsequent
experiences that the wires wear through and tear
out after less than a hundred miles.

On this first day, not having the hang of the job,
I found it disgustingly tedious. To begin with, to
get at the pulleys I had to open the back of the car,
and that meant lifting down all the carefully strapped
luggage and depositing it by the roadside. Then the
wire and tools were either in a cupboard under the
floor of the car or in a box under the ladies' seats.

42 The Lightning Conductor

which meant disturbing them every time one wanted
anything. How different to my beautifully planned
Napier, where every part is easily accessible !

The mending of that third speed-belt took me
half an hour, and after that we made some progress ;
but dusk coming on, I suggested to the ladies that
as there was very little fun in travelling in the
dark, I thought they had better stay the night at
Versailles, going on to Orleans the next day. They
agreed.

I had thought out plans for my own comfort. I
knew that at some of the smaller country inns there
would be no rooms for servants, and that I should
have to eat with the ladies, which suited me exactly.
In the larger towns, rather than mess with the
couriers, valets, and maids, I should simply instal
my employers in one hotel, then quietly go off myself
to another. That is what I did at Versailles. I saw
the ladies into the best hotel in the town, drove the
car into the stable-yard, and went out to watch for
Almond. He had followed us warily and had
stopped the Napier in a side street two hundred
yards away. I joined him, and we drove to a quiet
hotel about a quarter of a mile from Miss Randolph's.
I had my luggage taken in, bathed, changed, and
dined like a prince, instructing Almond to be up at
six next morning and thoroughly clean and oil the
German car, making a lot of new fastenings in spare
belts. Later in the day he is to follow us to Orleans
with the Napier. Thus I live the double life — by
day the leather-clad chauffeur; by night the English
gentleman travelling on his own car. The plans

The Lightning Conductor 43

seem well laid; I cover my tracks carefully; I don't
see how detection can come.

With a good deal of inward fear and trembling I
drove the car at eight the next morning to the door
of Miss Randolph's hotel. She and her masked and
goggled aunt appeared at once, and in five minutes
the luggage was strapped on behind.

"Now please understand," said the girl, with a
twinkle of merriment, in her eyes, "that this is to be
a pilgrimage, not a meteor flight. Even if this car's
capable of racing, which I guess it isn't, I don't want
to race. I just want to glide; I want to see every-
thing; to drink in impressions every instant."

This suited me exactly, for it gave me a chance
of humouring and studying the uncouth thing that
I was called upon to drive. I had come out to
Versailles to avoid the direct route to Orleans by
Etampes, which is pavt nearly all the way, and prac-
tically impassable for automobiles. From Versailles
there is a good route by Dourdan and Angerville,
which, if not picturesque, at least passes through
agreeable, richly cultivated country. The road is
exceedingly accidence on leaving Versailles, and I
drove with great care down the dangerous descent
to Chateaufort, and also down the hill at St. Re"my,
which leads to the valley of the Yvette. Till beyond
Dourdan the road is one long switchback, and it is
but fair to record that the solid German car climbed
the hills with a kind of lumbering sturdiness much to
its credit. At Dourdan we lunched, and soon aftei
entered on the long, level road to Orleans. The car
travelled well — for it, and the day's record of sixty-

44 The Lightning Conductor

seven miles was only three breakages of belts. To
my relief and surprise we actually got to Orleans in
time for dinner. I was a proud man when I drove
my employers into the old-fashioned courtyard of
the d'Orleans. Almond, I knew, was at the St.
Aignan with the Napier, and there I presently joined
him, to hear that he had done the total run from
Versailles, with an hour's stop for lunch, in under the
four hours, the car running splendidly all the way.
Almond does not at all understand why he is left
alone, and why I have gone off to drive two ladies in
an out-of-date German car which any self-respecting
automobilist would be ashamed to be seen on in
France. He looks at me queerly, and would like to
ask questions; but being a good servant as well as a
good mechanic, he doesn't, and kindly puts up with
his master's whims.

My orders were to be ready for the ladies at ten
the next morning, and when punctually to the
moment I drove the car into the courtyard, I found
them waiting for me. Miss Randolph volunteered
the news that she and her aunt had been round the
town in a cab to see the sites connected with the
Maid, but that she had found it very difficult to
picture things as they were, so modernised is the
town.

The morning we left Orleans was exquisite. The
car went well; the magnificent Loire was brimming
from bank to bank, and not meandering among dis-
figuring sand-banks, as it does later in the year; the
wide, green landscape shone through a glitter of
sunshine; and here and there in the blue sky floated

The Lightning Conductor 45

a mass of tumbled white cloud. Our little party at
first was silent. I think the beauty of the scene-
influenced us all, even Aunt Mary; and the thrum-
ming of the motor formed a monotonous under-
current to our thoughts.

As I've told you, the German horror is phaeton-
seated, and for me in front to talk comfortably to-
any lady behind is not easy. In driving, one can't
take one's attention much off the road, so Miss
Molly has to lean forward and shout over my shoul-
der. A curious and delightful kind of understand-
ing is growing up between us. You know that the
history of this part of France is fairly familiar to
me, and I've already done the castles twice before.
What I've forgotten, I've studied up in the eve-
nings, so as to be indispensable to Miss Randolph.
At first she spoke to me very little, only a kind word
now and then such as one throws to a servant; but
I could hear much of what she said to her aunt, and
her comments on things in general were sprightly
and original. She had evidently read a good deal,
looked at things freshly, and brought to bear on
the old Court history of France her own quaint
point of view. Her enthusiasm was ever ready —
bubbling, but never gushing, and I eagerly kept an
ear to the windward not to miss the murmur of the
geographical and historical fountain behind my back.

"Aunt Mary," on the contrary, has a vague and
ordinary mind, being more interested in what she is>
going to have for luncheon than in what she is going-
to see. The girl, therefore, is rather thrown back
upon herself. I burned to join in the talk, yet I

46 The Lightning Conductor

dared not step out of the character I had assumed.
As it turned out, fortune was waiting to befriend me.

We were bowling along through Meung, when I
suddenly spied on the other side of the river the
square and heavy mass of Notre Dame de Clery,
and almost without thinking, I pointed it out to
Miss Randolph. "There is C16ry," I said, "where
Louis the Eleventh is buried. You remember, in
Quentin Durward f The church is worth seeing. It's
almost a pity we didn't go that side of the river."
Then I stopped, rather confused, fearing I had
given myself away. There was a moment's aston-
ished silence, and I was afraid Miss Randolph would
see the back of my neck getting red.

"Why, Brown!" she cried, leaning forward over
my shoulder, "you know these things; you've read
history?"

"Oh yes, miss," I said. "I've read a bit here and
there, such books as I could get hold of. I was al-
ways interested in history and architecture, and
that sort of thing. Besides," I went on hastily,
"I've travelled this road before with a gentleman
who knows a good deal about this part of France."

I don't think that was disingenuous, was it? — for
I hope I've a right to call myself "a gentleman."

"How lucky for us!" cried Miss Randolph, and
I heard her congratulating herself to her aunt, be-
cause they had got hold of a cicerone and chauffeur
in one. After that she began to talk to me a good
deal, and now she seems to show a kind of wonder-
ing interest in testing the amount of my knowledge,
which I take care to clothe in common words and

The Lightning Conductor 47

not to show too much. You must admit the situa-
tion grows in piquancy.

At Mer we crossed the Loire by the suspension
bridge and ran the eight miles to Chambord, mean-
ing to lunch there, and go on to Blois after seeing
the Chateau. It was a grand performance for the
car to run nearly three hours without accident.
While luncheon was being prepared I filled up the
water-tanks (even this simple task involved lifting
all the luggage off the car), washed with some in-
valuable Hudson's soap, which I had brought from
my own car, and made myself smart for dejeuner.
The eating business will, I can see, be one of my
chief difficulties. At Chambord, for instance, in
the small hotel, there is, of course, no special room
for servants. As I have no fondness for eating in
stuffy kitchens when it can be avoided, I wandered
sedately into the salle d manger, where Miss Ran-
dolph and her aunt were already seated, and took
a place at the further end of the same long table
(we were the only people in the room). Aunt Mary
looked for an instant a little discomposed at the
idea of lunching with her niece's hired mechanic,
but Miss Randolph, noticing this — she sees every-
thing— shot me a welcoming smile. Then the pay-
ing difficulty is an odious one. Of course, at the
end of the meal my bill goes to her, and she pays for

me: "Micanicien, dtjeuner " so much. Picture

it! Of course, I can't protest, as this is the custom;
but I am keeping a strict account of all her expenses
on my account, and one day shall square our ac-
counts somehow — I don't at present see how. I

48 The Lightning Conductor

have formed the idea that by-and-by I may offer to
act also as courier, relieving her of the bother of
making payments, and so on. If I can work that,
I'll deduct my own lot and pay it myself, the
chances being that as she is careless about money
•she won't notice that I've done so, only thinking,
perhaps, that I am a clever chap to run things so
•cheaply.

There's another thing which gives me the "wom-
bles," as those delightful Miss Bryants used to call
the feeling they had when they were looking for-
ward to any event with a mixture of excitement,
iear, and embarrassment.

Well, I have the "wombles" when I think of the
moment, near at hand, when Miss Randolph will
hand me my weekly wage, which I have put at the
modest figure of fifty francs a week; but I am get-
ting away from the dtjeuner at Chambord.

We had just finished the croute au pot, when there
came a whirr! outside, upon which Miss Randolph
looked questioningly at me. "A little Pieper," I
said. "How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Can
you really tell different makes of cars just by their
sound?" "Anyone can do that," I informed her,
"with practice; you will yourself by the time you
get to the end of this journey. Each car has its
characteristic note. The De Dicn has a kind of
screaming whirr; the Benz a pulsing throb; the
Panhard a thrumming; a tricycle a noise like a
miniature Maxim."

The driver of the Pieper came in. His get-up
was the last outrageous word of automobilism —

The Lightning Conductor 49.

leather cap with ear-flaps, goggles and mask, a ridic-
ulously shaggy coat of fur, and long boots of skin-
up to his thighs — a suitable costume for an Arctic
explorer, but mighty fantastic in a mild French
winter. You know these posing French automo-
bilists. At sight of a beautiful girl, he made haste
to take off his hat and goggles, revealing himself as.
a good-looking fellow with abnormally long eye-
lashes, which I somehow resented. He preened
himself like a bird, twisted up the ends of his black
moustache, and prepared for conquest. Catching
Miss Randolph's eye, he smiled; she answered with
that delightful American frankness which the Italian
and the Frenchman misconstrue, and in a moment
they were talking motor-car as hard as they could
go. The poor chauffeur was ignored.

It undermines one's sense of self-importance to
find how quickly one can be unclassed. I tasted
at this moment the mortification of service. Once
in an hotel at Biarritz I gave to the valet de chambre-
a hat and a couple of coats that I didn't want any
more. They were in good condition, and he was
overwhelmed with the value of the gift. " Monsieur
is too kind," the fellow said; "such clothes are too
good for me. They are all right for you, but for
nous autres!" — the "others," who neither expect
the good things of life nor envy those who have
them. The expression implies the belief that the
world is divided into two parts — the ones and the
other ones.

Now, as I heard my sweet and clever little lady
babbling automobilism with all the wisdom of air

50 The Lightning Conductor

amateur of six weeks, I felt that I was indeed one
of the Others. Though the Frenchman was to me
a manifest Worm (in that he was supercilious, puffed
up with conceit, taking it for granted that women
should fall down and worship him) and a ridiculous
braggart, I had to see her receive his open admira-
tion with equanimity and listen to his stories with
credulity, my business being to eat in silence and
"thank Heaven" (though not "fasting") that I was
allowed in the presence of my betters. Still, I would
have gone through more than that to be near her,
to hear her talk, and see her smile, for frankly this
girl begins to interest me as no other woman has.

"Ah, how I have travelled to-day!" the French-
man said, throwing his hands wide apart. "I left
Paris this morning, to-morrow I shall be in Biarritz.
To-day I have killed a dog and three hens. On the
front of my car just now I found the bones and
feathers of some birds, which miscalculated their
distance and could not get away in time." Miss
Randolph gave a little cry, translating for her aunt,
who has no French.

"Shocking!" ejaculated Aunt Mary. "A regular
juggernaut."

"Your car does not go as fast as that, mademoi-
selle?" the Frenchman went on. "A little heavy,
I should think; a slow hill-climber?"

"On the contrary," Miss Randolph fired up.
"Though my car has — er — some drawbacks, it goes
splendidly uphill, doesn't it, Brown?"

"That is its strong point," I answered, grateful
for the unexpected and kindly word of recognition

The Lightning Conductor 51

thrown to me, one of the Others; but the Frenchman
did not deign to notice the chauffeur.

" Capital! " cried he. " If mademoiselle be willing,
and a hill can be found in the neighbourhood, I should
like to wager my Pieper against her seven-horse-
power German car. I had an odd experience the
other day," he went on. "My motor stopped for
want of essence; luckily it was in a village, but
there wasn't a drop of essence to be bought — all the
shops were sold out. What do you think I did,
mademoiselle? I filled the tank with absinthe from
a cafe, and got home on that. Not many would have
thought of it, eh?"

"Few indeed," said I to myself, for it was news
to me that his carburetter could burn heavy oil.
While I was reflecting that automobiling, like fishing,
is a pursuit whose followers are peculiarly ready
to sacrifice truth on the altar of picturesqueness,
luncheon was over, and we all rose. With what
seemed to me detestable impertinence, though clearly
not understood as such by innocent Miss Randolph,
the Frenchman sauntered by the side of the ladies
as if to go with them to the Chateau. Perhaps my
young mistress was touched by the look of gloom
that doubtless clouded my insignificant features, for
she promptly and cordially tendered me an invitation
to go with them. "You know, Brown," she said, "we
look on you as our guide as well as our chauffeur"
("and I must be your watch-dog too, though it isn't
in the contract," I grumbled to myself, "if you are
going to allow every automobilist who claims the
right of fellowship to thrust himself upon you").

52 The Lightning Conductor

Even Aunt Mary was impressed as we passed into
the inner court of Chambord, and Miss Randolph
<whose sympathy and imagination throws her at
once into harmony with her surroundings) drew a
quick breath of half-awed astonishment at sight of
this enormous structure, more like a city than
a single house, with its prodigious towers, its ex-
traordinary assemblage of pinnacles, gables, turrets,
cones, chimneys and gargoyles. The Frenchman
minced along at her side, twirling his moustache,
-and making great play with those long-lashed eyes
of his. I divined his intention to outdistance us,
and get Miss Randolph to himself in the labyrinth
of vast, empty rooms through which our party was
paraded by a languid guide; but thwarted him by
hastening Aunt Mary's steps and keeping upon their
heels in my new character of watch- dog. I was
more annoyed than I care to tell you when I saw
that she seemed to like his idiotic compliments; but
when I heard him tell her airily that Chambord was
built by Louis the Fourteenth, and Miss Randolph
turned questioningly to me with a puzzled little
wrinkle on her forehead, I felt that my time had
<;ome.

I began something reprehensively like a lecture on
Chambord, putting myself by Miss Randolph's side,
and determined that the Frenchman should get no
further chance. I pointed out the constant recurrence
of the salamander, the emblem of Francis the First,
the builder of the house, and I told how he had
.selected this sandy waste to build it on, because the
Comtesse de Thoury had once lived near by, she

The Lightning Conductor 53

having been one of the earliest loves of that oft-
loving King. I enlarged upon the characteristics
of French Renaissance architecture, pointed out the
unity in variety of the design of Pierre Nepveu,
the obscure but splendid genius who planned the
house as something between a fortified castle and
an Italian palace; showed them the H entwined
with a crescent on those parts of the house that
were built by Henry the Second; and sketched the
history of the place, talking about Marshal Saxe,
Stanislas of Poland, the Revolution of 1792, and
the subsequent tenancy of Berthier. I can tell you
that when once I was started, the absinthe-driver
was bowled over. I simply sprawled all over
Chambord, talked for once as well as I knew how,
directed all my remarks to Miss Randolph, who —
'"though I say it as shouldn't" — seemed dazzled by
itny fireworks. An English girl must have been
struck with the incongruity of a hired mechanic
.'spouting French history like a public lecturer, but
she, I think, only put it down to some difference
in the standard of English education. Anyhow, the
Frenchman was done for, and Miss Randolph and
[ plunged into an interesting talk, shunting the new
acquaintance upon Aunt Mary. As she can speak
no French and he no English, they must have had
a "Jack-Sprat-and-his-wife" experience.

For that happy hour while we wandered through
the echoing-rooms of Chambord, climbed the wonder-
ful double staircase, and walked about the intricate
roof, I was no longer James Brown, the hired me-
chanic, but John Winston, private gentleman and

54 The Lightning Conductor

man at large, with a taste for travel. There came
a horrid wrench when I had to remember that I had
chosen to make myself one of the un classed, one
of the "others." The autumnal twilight was falling;
we had to get to Blois on a car that might commit
any atrocity at any instant. Yet, strange to say,
it had a magnanimous impulse, started easily, and
ran smoothly. The somewhat subdued Frenchman
started just before us on his little Pieper, and soon
outpaced our solid chariot. We went back to St.
Die, took the road by the Loire, and as dusk was
falling crossed the camel-backed bridge over the
great river, and went up the Rue Denis Pepin into
the ancient city of Blois. The Chateau does not
show its best face to the riverside, being hemmed in
by other buildings, so I drove past our hotel and on
to the pretty green place where the great many-
windowed Chateau springs aloft from its huge foun-
dation. "The famous Chateau of Blois," I remarked,
waving a hand towards it. "The old home of the
kings of France." We all sat and looked up at the
huge, silent building, the glowing colours of its
recessed windows catching the last beams of depart-
ing day.

" I suppose its only tenants now are ghosts," said
Miss Randolph. " I can imagine that I see wicked
Catherine de Medicis glaring at us from that high
window near the tower." It was an impressive intro-
duction to one of the greatest monuments of France,
and after we had gazed a little longer I turned the
car and drove back into the courtyard of the Grand
Hotel de Blois, where tame partridges pecked at

The Lightning Conductor 55

grain upon the ground, many dogs gambolled, and
foreign birds bickered and chattered in huge cages.
At the entrance was the Frenchman, all eyes and
eyelashes, darting forward to help Miss Randolph
from her car.

I grew weary to nausea of this shallow, pretentious
ass, with no knowledge of his own land. It began to
shape itself in my mind that though a gentleman in
exterior he was the common or garden fortune-
hunter, or perhaps worse. Finding a beautiful
American girl travelling en automobile, chaperoned
only by a rather foolish and pliable aunt, he fancied
her an easy prey to his elaborate manners and eye-
lashes. Knowing we were coming to the " Grand," I
had directed Almond to drive the Napier to the
" France," and my duty for the day being over, I was
about to go across to change and dine, when I saw
Miss Randolph in the hall. She was annoyed, she
told me, to find that the best suite of rooms were
taken by some rich Englishman and his daughter,
and she had to put up with second-rate ones. "Poor
Monsieur Talleyrand," she ended, "has little more
than a cupboard to sleep in." Talleyrand, then, was
the name of the Frenchman. "Oh, is he stopping
here ?" I asked. "He said he was going on at once
to Biarritz."

"He's changed his mind," said she. "He's so
impressed with Chambord that he says it's a pity
not to see all the other chateaux, which are so impor-
tant in the history of his own country. He asked
Aunt Mary if we should mind his going at the same
time with us. So of course she said we wouldn't."

56 The Lightning Conductor

All this, if you please, with the most candid air of
guilelessness, which I actually believe was genuine.

"She said what?" I demanded, quite forgetting
my part in my rage.

"She said," repeated Miss Randolph slowly and
with dignity, "that we would not mind his seeing the
chateaux when we see them. Why should we mind?
The poor young man won't do us any harm, and it's
quite right of him to want to see his own castles,
because, anyhow, they're a great deal more his than
ours."

I was still out of myself, or rather out of Brown.

" But is it possible, my dear Miss Randolph," I was
mad enough to exclaim (I, who had never before
risen above the level of a humble "miss"), "that you
and Miss Kedison believe in that flimsy excuse?
The castles "

"Yes, the castles," she repeated, very properly
taking the word out of my mouth ; and the worst of
it was that she was completely right in setting me in
my place, setting me down hard. " I am surprised at
you, Brown. You are a splendid mechanic, and —
and you have travelled and read such a lot that you
are a very good guide too, and because I think we're
lucky to have got you I treat you quite differently
frcm an ordinary chauffeur" (If you could have
heard that "ordinary" as she said it! There was
hope in it in the midst of humiliation; but I dared
not let a gleam dart from my respectful eye.) " Still,
you must remember, please, that you are engaged for
certain things and not for others. If I need a pro-
tector besides Aunt Mary, I may tell you."

The Lightning Conductor 57

I could have burst into unholy laughter to hear the
poor child; but I bottled it up, and only ventured to
say, with a kind of soapy meekness which I hoped
might lather over the real presumption," I beg your
pardon, miss, and I hope you won't be offended; but,
as you say, I have travelled a little, and I know
something of Frenchmen. They don't always under-
stand American young ladies as well as "

"'As well as Englishmen,' I suppose you were going
to say," snapped she, that dimpled chin of hers
suddenly seeming to assume a national squareness
I'd never observed. "But Monsieur Talleyrand,
though a Frenchman, is a gentleman."

That's what I had to swallow, my boy. The
inference was that a French gentleman was, at worst,
a cut above an English mechanic, and with that she
turned her back on me and ran upstairs with such a
rustling of unseen silk things as made me feel her
very petticoats were bristling with indignation.

I could have shaken the girl. And the things
I said to myself as I stalked over to my own hotel
won't bear repeating; they might set the mail-bag
on fire; combustibles aren't allowed in the post,
I believe. I swore that (among other things) one
such snubbing was enough. If Miss Randolph
wanted to get herself in the devil of a scrape, she
could do it, but I wasn't going to stand by and look
complacently on while that smirking Beast made
fools of her and her aunt. I'd clear out to-morrow;
didn't care a hang whether she found out the trick
I'd played or not.

That mood lasted about ten minutes, then I began

58 The Lightning Conductor

to realise that, talking of beasts, there was some-
thing of the sort inside my own leather coat, and
that if anyone deserved a shaking, it was Jack
Winston, and not that poor, pretty little thing.
I was bound to stop on in the place and protect her,
whether she knew she wanted any protection except
Aunt Mary's (oh, Lord!) or not. Besides, I wanted
the place, since it was the best I could expect for
the present, and where Talleyrand (?) was, there
would I be also, so long as he was near Her.

Bath and dinner brought me once more as near to
an angelic disposition as I hope to attain in this
sphere; and, while I was supposed to be earning my
screw by cleaning the loathsome car, and making
new fastenings for spare belts, I was complacently
watching poor Almond in the throes of these
Herculean labours. N.B. — It's only fair to myself
to tell you that Almond is getting double wages,
and is quite satisfied, though I'm persuaded he thinks
he has a madman for a master.

About half-past nine next morning (that's yester-
day, in case you're getting mixed) I was hanging
round the German chariot with a duster, pretending
to flick specks off it, though Almond had left none,
when Miss Randolph, Aunt Mary, and the alleged
Talleyrand came out of the coffee-room, laughing
and talking like the best of friends. Talleyrand was
now in ordinary clothes, perhaps to point the
difference between himself and a mere professional
chauffeur. Miss Randolph looked adorable. She'd
put off her motoring get-up, and was no end of a
swell. This I saw without seeming to see, for we

The Lightning Conductor 59

liad not met since our scene. I didn't know where
I stood with her, but thought it prudent meanwhile
to wear a humble air of conscious rectitude, mis-
understood.

Talleyrand was swaggering along without a glance
at the chauffeur (why not, indeed ?) when Miss
Randolph hung back, looked round, and then
stopped. "Oh, Brown, do you know as much about
the Chateau of Blois as you did about Chambord?"
asked she, in a voice as sweet as the Lost Chord.

"Yes, miss, I think I do," said I, lifting my black
leather cap.

"Then, are you too busy to come with us ? "
"No, miss, not at all, if I can be of any service."
" But, you know, you needn't come unless you
like. Maybe it bores you to be a guide."

Now, if I'd been a gentleman and not a chauffeur,
perhaps I should have had a right to suspect just
a morsel of innocent, kittenish coquetry in this. As
it is with me — and with her — if there's anything of
the sort, it's wholly unconscious. But it's the most
adorable type of girl who flirts a little with every-
thing human — man, woman, or child — and doesn't
know it. I take no flattering unction to myself as
Brown. Nevertheless I dutifully responded that it
gave me pleasure to make use of such small know-
ledge as I possessed, and was grateful to her for
not hearing Talleyrand murmur that he'd provided
himself with the Guide Joanne. After that I could
afford to be moderately complacent, even though
I had to walk in the rear of the party, and no one
took notice of me until I was wanted.

60 The Lightning Conductor

That time came, when we'd wound round the path
under the commanding old Chateau, with its long
lines of windows, and reached the exquisite Gothic
doorway. From that moment it was the Chambord
business over again; and I thanked my foresight
for having stopped out of my bed half the night,
fagging up all the historical details I'd forgotten.
These I brought out with a naturalistic air of having
been brought up on them since earliest infancy.

Miss Randolph chatters pretty American French,
but doesn't understand as much as she speaks when
it's reeled off by the yard, so to say; therefore my
explanations in English were more profitable than
the French of the official guide, who fell into the
background. My delightful American maiden has
never travelled abroad before, and she brings with
her a fresh eagerness for all the old things that are
so new to her. It is a constant joy even for poor
handicapped Brown to go about with her, finding
how invariably she seizes on the right thing, which
she knows by instinct rather than cultivation — though
she's evidently what she would call a "college girl."

I halted my little party before the Louis the
Twelfth gateway, made them admire the equestrian
statue of the good King, drew their attention to the
beautiful chimneys and the adornments of the roof,
with the agreeable porcupine of Louis, the mild
ermine and the constantly recurring festooned rope
of that important lady, Anne of Brittany. Then I
led them inside, rejoicing in Talleyrand's air of
resentful remoteness from my guidance. I scored,
too, in his superficial knowledge of .English. In the

The Lightning Conductor 61

midst of my ciceronage, however, I thought of you,
and how we had discussed plans of this trip to-
gether. You had looked forward particularly to
the Chateau; and as you've urged me to paint for
you what you can't see (this time), your blood be
on your own head if I bore you.

You would be happy in the courtyard of the
Chateau, for it would be to your mind, as to mine,
one of the most delightful things in Europe. It's
a sort of object lesson in French architecture and
history, showing at least three periods; and when
Miss Randolph looked up at that perfect, open stair-
case, bewildering in its carved, fantastic beauty, I
wasn't surprised to have her ask if she were dream-
ing it, or if we saw it too. "It's lace, stone lace,"
she said. And so it is. She coined new adjectives
for the windows, the sculptured cornices, the ex-
quisite and ingenious perfection of the incomparable
facade.

"I could be so good if I always had this staircase
to look at! " she exclaimed. " It didn't seem to have
any effect on Catherine de Medici's soul; but then I
suppose when she lived here she stopped indoors
most of the time, making up poisons. I'm sorry
I said yesterday that Francis the First had a ridic-
ulous nose. A man who could build this had a
right to have anything he liked, or do anything he
liked."

And you should have seen her stare when Talley-
rand bestowed an enthusiastic "Comme c'estbeau!"
on the left wing of the courtyard, for which Gaston
i'Orleans* bad taste and foolish extravagance is

62 The Lightning Conductor

responsible — a thing not to be named with the joyous
Renaissance facade of Francis.

When Miss Randolph could be torn away, we
went inside, and throwing off self -consciousness in
the good cause, I flung myself into the drama of
the Guise murder. Little did I know what I was
letting myself in for. My one desire was to interest
Miss Randolph, and (incidentally, perhaps) show her
what a clever chap she had got for a chaffeur —
though he wasn't a gentleman, and Talleyrand was.
, I pointed from a window to the spot where stands
the house from which the Due de Guise was decoyed
from the arms of his mistress; showed where he
stood impatiently leaning against the tall mantel-
piece, waiting his audience with Henri the Third;
pointed to the threshold of the Vieux Cabinet where
he was stabbed in the back as he lifted the arras;
told how he ran, crying "a moi!" and where he
fell at last to die, bleeding from more than forty
wounds, given by the Forty Gentlemen of the Plot;
showed the little oratory in which, while the murder-
ous work went on, two monks gabbled prayers for
its successful issue.

I got quite interested in my own harangue, in-
spired by those stars Miss Randolph has for eyes,
and didn't notice that my audience had increased,
until, at this point, I suddenly heard a shocked echo
of Aunt Mary's "Oh!" of horror, murmured in a
strange voice, close to my shoulder. Then I looked
round and saw a man and a girl, who were evidently
hanging on my words.
. The man was the type one sees on advertisements

The Lightning Conductor 63

of succulent sauces; you know, the smiling, full-
bodied, red-faced, good-natured John Bull sort, who
is depicted smacking his lips over a meal accom-
panied by The Sauce, which has produced the
ecstasy. One glance at his shaven upper lip, his
chin beard, and his keen but kindly eye, and I set
him down as a comfortable manufacturer on a holi-
day— a Lancashire or Yorkshire man. The girl
might be a daughter or young wife; I thought the
former. A handsome creature, with big black eyes
and a luscious, peach-like colour; style of hairdressing
conscientiously copied from Queen Alexandra's; fine
figure, well shown off by a too elaborate dress pro-
bably bought at the wrong shop in Paris; you felt
she had been sent by doting parents to a boarding-
school for "the daughters of noblemen and gentle-
men"; no expense spared.

It was she who had echoed Aunt Mary; and when
I turned she bridled. Yes, I think that's the only
word for what she did. But it was the man who
spoke.

" I beg your par don," he said, dividing the apology
among the whole party, and taking off his unspeak-
ably solid hat to the ladies. "I hope there's no
objection to me and my daughter listening to this
very intelligent guide? She's learned French, but
it doesn't seem to work here; she thinks it's too
Parisian for Blois, but anyhow, we couldn't either of
us understand a word the French guide said, so we
took the liberty of joining on to you, with a great
deal of pleasure and profit."

He had a sort of engaging ingenuousness, mixed

04 The Lightning Conductor

with shrewdness of the provincial order, and I could
see that he appealed to my American girl, though
I don't think she cottoned to the daughter. She
smiled at the papa, as if for the sake of her own;
and in a few pretty words practically made him a
present of me, that is, she offered to let him share me
for the rest of the tour round the Chateau. I was not
sorry, as I hoped that the daughter might occupy the
attention of Monsieur Talleyrand; and as, under
these new conditions, we continued our explorations,
I adroitly contrived to divide off the party as follows :
Miss Randolph, the Lancashire man (his accent had
placed him in my mind), and myself; Aunt Mary,
the new girlr and our gentleman of the eyelashes.
This arrangement was satisfactory to me and the
•old man, whether it was to anybody else or not; and
so grouped, we went through the apartments of
Catherine de Medicis (Aunt Mary pronounced "those
little poison cupboards of hers vurry cunning; so cute
of her to keep changing them around all the time!"),
and out on the splendid balconies.

The Lancashire man, thanks to Miss Randolph's
permission, made himself quite at home with me,
bombarding me with historical questions. But it
was evident that he was puzzled as to my status.

"You are a first-rate lecturer," said he. "I sup-
pose that's your profession?"

" Not entirely," said I, with a glance at Miss Ran-
dolph ; but she was enjoying the joke, and not minded
to enlighten him. Probably he supposed that leather
jacket and leggings was the regulation costume of a
lecturing guide.

The Lightning Conductor 65

"Do you engage by the day," he inquired, "or by
the tour? "

" So far, I have engaged by the tour, sir," I returned,
playing up for the amusement of my lady.

He scratched his chin reflectively. "Baedeker
recommends several of these old castles in this part
of the country," said he. " Do you know 'em all? "

I answered that I had visited them.

"All as interesting as this? "

"Quite, in different ways."

"Hm! Do you speak French?"

"Fairly," I modestly responded.

"Well, if this young lady hasn't engaged you for
too long ahead, I should like to talk to you about
going on with us. I didn't think I should care to
have a courier, but a chap like you would add a good
deal to the pleasure of a trip. Seems to me you are
a sort of walking encyclopaedia. I would pay you
whatever you asked, in reason "

"And, oh, papa, he might go on with us all the way
to Cannes!" chipped in the daughter, which was my
first intimation that she was listening. But she had
joined the forward group, and the words addressed to
Pa were apparently spoken at me. I dared not look
at Miss Randolph, but I hoped that a background of
other people's approval might set me off well in
her eyes.

I was collecting my wits for an adequate answer,
when she relieved me of the responsibility. I might
even say she snapped up the young lady from
Lancashire.

"I'm afraid I must disappoint you," she replied for

66 The Lightning Conductor

her chauffeur. "He is engaged to me. I mean"
(and she blushed divinely) "he is under engagement
to remain with my aunt and myself for some time
We are making a tour on an automobile."

" I beg your pardon, I'm sure," said the old fellow,
as the American and the English girl eyed each
other — or each other's dresses. " I didn't understand
the arrangement. When you are free, though," he
went on, turning to me, " you might just let me know.
We're thinking of travelling about for some time,
and I've taken a liking to your ways. I'm at the
' Grand ' here at Blois for the day, then we go on to
Tours, and so by easy stages to the Riviera. At
Cannes, we shall settle down for a bit, as my daughter
has a friend who's expecting us to meet her there.
But I'll give you my card, with my home address
on it, and a letter, or, better still, a wire, would
be forwarded." He then thanked Miss Randolph
for me, thanked me for myself, and, with a last
flourish of trumpets, handed me his card.

By this time we had "done" the castle, as con-
scientious Aunt Mary would say, and were parting.
All exchanged bows (Miss Randolph's and the
Lancashire girl's expressive of armed neutrality)
and parted. I thereupon glanced at the card and
got a sensation.

"Mr. Jabez Barrow, Edenholme Hall, Liverpool,"
was what I read. That conveys little to you, though
as an address it has suggestive charm, but to me
it meant nothing less than a complication. Queer,
what a little place the world is! To make clear the
situation I need only say, "The Cotton King." Yes,

The Lightning Conductor 67

that's it; you've guessed it. These Barrows are my
mother's newest proteges. Jabez Barrow is the
"quaint, original old man" she is so anxious for
me to meet, and, indeed, has made arrangements that
I should meet. Miss Barrow is the "beautiful girl
with wonderful eyes and such charming ways," who,
in my dear mother's opinion, would be so desirable
as a daughter-in-law. Had not your doctors knocked
our plans on the head you would have had the
pleasure of being introduced in my company to
the heiress, when I should have made you a present
of my chance to add to your own. As it is — well,
I don't quite see that any bother can come out
of this coincidence, but I must keep a sharp look-
out for myself. I saw no Kodak in the hands of
the gilded ones, or — by-and-by — my mother might
receive a shock. But perhaps they may have pos-
sessed and concealed it.

Into the midst of my broodings over the card
broke the voice of Miss Randolph, in whose wake
I was now following down the picturesque old street
to the hotel. Talleyrand was in attendance again,
and she had merely to say that the car was to be ready
for start to Amboise after luncheon. Accordingly I
stepped over to my own private lair, told Almond to
get off at once with my Napier to Amboise, putting
up at a hotel I named and awaiting instructions.

Have you begun to think there's to be no end to
this letter? Well, I shall try to whet your curiosity
for what's still to come by saying that I have availed
myself of a strange blank interval in the middle of
the night for the writing of it, and that dawn can't

68 The Lightning Conductor

now be far off. When it breaks this adventure
of mine will have reached a crisis — a distinctly
new development. But enough of hints.

This country of the Loire is exquisite; it has both
grandeur and simple beauty, and the road winding
above the river is practically level and in splendid
condition; ideal for motors and "hay-motors." The
distance between the good town of Blois and Am-
boise is less than twenty miles. Any decent-minded
motor would whistle along from the great grey
Chateau to the brilliant cream-white one under the
hour, but that isn't the way of our Demon.

Miss Randolph once said that owning a motor-car
was like having a half-tamed dragon in the family.
She is quite right about her motor-car, poor child!
The Demon had been behaving somewhat less
fiendishly of late, and I had hopes of a successful
run to Amboise, which I particularly desired, as
.Eyelashes was to accompany us with his Pieper.
But this good conduct had been no more than a
trick.

The luggage was loaded up; Talleyrand was
making himself officious about helping the ladies,
who were in the courtyard ready to mount, when
the motor took it into its vile head not to start —
a little attack of faintness, owing to the petrol
being cold perhaps. Of course, there was the usual
crowd of hotel servants and loafers to see us off,
and beyond, standing as interested spectators on
the steps, who but Jabez Barrow and his handsome
daughter.

I tell you the perspiration decorated my forehead

The Lightning Conductor 69

in beads when I'd made a dozen fruitless efforts to
start that family dragon, Eyelashes maddening me
the while with a series of idiotic suggestions. Even
Miss Randolph began to get a little nervous, and
called out to me, "What can be the matter, Brown?
I thought you were such a strong man too. Do let
Monsieur Talleyrand try, as he's an expert."

I could see Eyelashes didn't like that suggestion
a little bit, consequently I welcomed it. It's very
well to dance about and give advice, quite another
thing to do the work yourself; but I gleefully stood
aside while he grasped the starting-handle. It takes
both strength and knack to start that car, and he
had neither. At first he couldn't get the handle
round against the compression; then, exerting him-
self further, there came a terrific back-fire — the
handle flew round, knocked him off his feet, and
sent him staggering, very pale, into the arms of a
white-aproned waiter. I couldn't help grinning, and
I fancy Miss Randolph hid a smile behind her hand-
kerchief.

Eyelashes was furious. "It is a horror, that
German machine ! " he cried. " Such a thing has
no right to exist. Look at mine ! " He darted to
his Pieper, gave one twist of the handle, and the
motor instantly leaped into life. Everyone mur-
mured approval at this demonstration of the supe-
riority of France, or rather, Belgium, to Germany;
but next moment I had got our motor to start. The
ladies dubiously took their places, and under the
critical dark eyes of Miss Barrow I steered out into
the streets of Blois.

70 The Lightning Conductor

I will spare you the detailed horrors of the next
few hours. It seemed to me that to keep that car
going one must have the agility of a monkey, the
strength of a Sandow, and the resourcefulness of
a Sherlock Holmes. Almost everything went wrong
that could go wrong. Both chains snapped — that
was trifling except for the waste of time, but finally
the exhaust- valve spring broke. It was getting dusk
by this time, and to replace that spring was one
of the grisliest of my automobile experiences. To
get at it I had to lift off all the upper body of the
car and take out both the inlet and the exhaust
valves. As darkness came on, Miss Randolph (who
took it all splendidly and laughed at our misfortunes)
held a lamp while I wrestled with the spring and
valves. The Frenchman, who had kept close to us
on his irritatingly perfect little Pieper, I simply used
as a labourer, ordering him about as I pleased — my
one satisfaction. After an hour's work (much of the
time on my back under the car, with green oil
dripping into my hair!) I got the new spring on,
and we could start again. Then — horror on horror's
head! — we had not gone two miles before I heard
a strange clack! clack! and looking behind, saw that
one of the back tyres was loose, hanging to the wheel
in a kind of festoon, like a fat worm.

It was eight o'clock; we had lunched at one; the
night was dark; we were still miles short of Amboise;
if the tyre came right off, it would be awkward to
run on the rim. I explained this, suggesting that
we should leave the car for a night at a farmhouse,
which presumably existed behind a high, glimmering

The Lightning Conductor 71

white wall near which we happened to halt, and try
to get a conveyance of some sort to drive on to
Amboise.

But I had calculated without Eyelashes. Instantly
he saw his chance, and seized it. Figuratively he
laid his Pieper at the ladies' feet. To be sure, it was
built for only two, but the seat was very wide; there
was plenty or room; he would be only too glad to
whirl them off to the most comfortable hotel at
Amboise, which could be reached in no time. As
for the chauffeur, he could be left to look after the car.

The chauffeur, however, did not see this in the
same light. Not that he minded the slight hardship,
if any, but to see his liege lady whisked off from
under his eyes by the villain of the piece was too
much.

Think how you would have felt in my place. But
the hideous part was that, like "A" in a "Vanity
Fair" Hard Case, I could do nothing. The proposal
was vexatiously sensible, and I had to stand swallow-
ing my objections while Miss Randolph and her aunt
decided.

I saw her move a step or two towards the Pieper
silently, rather gloomily, but Aunt Mary was grimly
alert. Eyelashes had, I had learned through snatches
of conversation on board the car, been tactful enough
to present Aunt Mary with a little brooch and a
couple of hat-pins of the charming faience made by a
famous man in Blois. Intrinsically of no great value,
they rejoiced in ermine and porcupine crests, with
exquisitely coloured backgrounds, and the guileless
lady's heart had been completely won. She now

72 The Lightning Conductor

emphatically voted for the Frenchman and his car.
But I have already noted a little peculiarity of Miss
Randolph's, which I have also observed in other de-
lightful girls, though none as delightful as she. If
she is undecided about a thing, and somebody else
takes it for granted she is going to do it, she is im-
mediately certain that she never contemplated any-
thing of the kind.

This welcome idiosyncrasy now proved my friend.
"Why, Aunt Mary," she exclaimed, "you wouldn't
have me go off and desert my own car, in the middle
of tlie night too? I couldn't think of such a thing.
You can go with Monsieur Talleyrand, if you want
to, but I shall stay here till everything is settled."

I was really sorry for Aunt Mary. She was almost
ready to cry.

"You know perfectly well I shouldn't dream of
leaving you here, perhaps to be murdered," whim-
pered she. "Where you stay, I stay."

She had the air of an elderly female Casabianca.

As for Miss Randolph, I adored her when she
bade me go with her to investigate what lay behind
the wall, and told Talleyrand off for sentinel duty
^ver Aunt Mary and the car in the road.

At first sight the wall seemed a blank one, but I
icund a large gate, pushed it open, and we walked
into the darkness of a great farmyard. Not a
glimmer showed the position of the house, but a
clatter of hoofs and a chink of light guided us to-
wards a stable, where a giant man with aquiline
face was rubbing down a rusty and aged horse. He
started and fixed a suspicious stare on me, and I

The Lightning Conductor 73

daresay that I was a forbidding figure in my dirty
leather clothes, with smears of oil upon my face.
His expression lightened a little at sight of my
companion, but he was inflexible in his refusal to
drive us anywhere. His old mare had cast a shoe on
her way home just now; he would not take her out
again. Could he, then, Miss Randolph asked, give
us rooms for the night, and food? As to that he was
not sure, but would consult his wife. He tramped
before us to the big dark house, put down his lan-
tern in the hall, opened a door, and ushered us into
a dark room, following and closing the door behind
him. The room was airless and heavy with the
odour of cooking. The darkness was intense, and
from the midst of it came a strange sound of jabber-
Ing and bleating which for the life of me I couldn't
understand. I felt Miss Randolph draw near me as
if for protection, then with the scratch of a match
and a flicker from a lamp which the farmer was
lighting, was revealed the cause of the weird sounds.
Seated by the stove was a pathetically old woman,
with pendulous chin and rheumy eyes. Swinging
her palsied head from side to side, she jabbered and
bleated incoherently to herself, being abandoned to
this plague of darkness doubtless from motives of
economy.

The farmer's wife appeared, and after much dis-
cussion it was arranged that the ladies could have
a double-bedded room, and there was a small one
that would do for Monsieur Talleyrand; but the
vntcanicien would have to sleep in the barn, where h*
could have some clean straw. Supper could be ready

74 The Lightning Conductor

in half an hour, but we were not to expect the lux-
uries of a hotel.

The farmer and I carried the ladies' hand-luggage
upstairs into a mysterious dim region, where all was
clean and cold. I had a flickering, candle-lit vision
of a big white room, with an enormously high bed-
stead, bare floor, a rug or two, a chair or two, a shrine,
and a washhand-stand with a knitted cover, one
basin the size of a porridge-bowl containing a thing
like a milk-jug. Then I set down my burden and
departed to wheel the great helpless car into the
farmyard, and wash my hands with Hudson's soap in
a trough under a pump outside the kitchen.

Meanwhile preparations for supper went on, and
as I was hungrily hoping for scraps when my betters
should have finished, who should pop out but that
Angel to say that supper was ready, and would I eat
with them! I had been working so hard and must
be starved. If she had guessed how I longed to kiss
her she would have run away indoors much faster
than she did.

There was soup, chicken, an omelette, and cheese.
Trust a Frenchwoman — even the humblest — to turn
out an excellent meal on the shortest notice. Miss
Randolph smiled and beamed on them, so that in
five minutes the farmer and his wife were her willing
slaves. She was delighted with the "adventure," as
she called it, declaring that the whole thing would be
the greatest fun in the world. She was glad that the
horrid tyre had come off, as it gave her the chance,
which she would never have had otherwise, of study-
ing French peasant life at first hand. Aunt Mary

The Lightning Conductor 75

was called in from outside and acquiesced, as she
always did, in the arrangements made by her im-
petuous niece ; the farmer and I had pushed the Ger-
man car inside the gate and left it; but Talley-
rand was fussy about getting proper cover for his
smart Pieper, and was not satisfied until he had
housed it in a dry barn near the house.

After supper I strolled out into the night, trying,
with a pipe between my lips, to think out the details
of an alluring new plan which had flashed into my
mind.

"Flashed" there, do I say? Forced, rammed in,
and pounded down expresses it better. Will you
believe it, during supper, that fellow — Eyelashes, I
mean — had had the audacity to urge upon Miss
Randolph that she must now continue the tour on
his car!

I was smoking and fuming in the dark, in a corner
down by the gateway, when I heard a whisper of silk
(I suppose it's linings; I'd know it at the North Pole
as hers, now), and detected a shadow which I knew
meant Miss Randolph. She came nearer. I saw
her distinctly now, for she was carrying a lantern.
At first I thought she was looking for me, but she
wasn't. She went straight to the car and stood
glowering at it for a minute, having set down the
lantern. Then she took Something out of the folds
of her dress and seemed to feel it with her hand.
"Oh, you won't go, won't you?" she inquired sar-
donically. "You like to break your belts and go
dropping your chains about, just to give Brown all
the trouble you can, don't you, and keep us from

76 The Lightning Conductor

getting anywhere? You think it's enough to be
beautiful, and you can be as much of a beast as you
like. But you're not beautiful. You're horrid, and
I hate you! Take that!"

Up went the Something in her hand ; it glittered
in the yellow light of the lantern. If you will believe
it, the girl had got a hatchet and was chopping at the
car. Her poor vicious little stroke did no great
damage, but she chipped off a big flake of varnish
and left a white gash.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, as if it had hurt her and
not her great lumbering dragon. "Oh, you deserve

it, you know, and a lot more. But — but " and

she gave a little gurgling sigh.

I had been on the point of bursting out with
uncontrollable laughter, but suddenly I ceased to
find the thing funny. I couldn't lurk in ambush and
hear any more; I couldn't sneak away — even to
spare her feelings — and leave her there to cry, for
I felt she was going to cry. So I came out into the
circle of lantern-light, shaking the tobacco from my
pipe.

"Why, Brown, is that you? " she quavered. " I —
I didn't want anyone to see me, and I wasn't crying
about the car, but just Because — because of every-
thing. I found that hatchet, and — I couldn't help it.
I'm sorry now, though. It was mean of me to hit
a thing when it's down, even if it is a Beast. It
does deserve to be killed, though. It's simply no
use trying to go on with such a thing — is it? "

Because of the Plan in my mind I replied gloomily
that the prospect was rather discouraging.

The Lightning Conductor 77

"Discouraging ! It's impossible ! " she cried. "I've
been hoping against hope, but I see that now. I
won't ask poppa to buy me another; it's too ridicu-
lous. So there's nothing left except to go on by train
everywhere, unless — you heard how kind Monsieur
Talleyrand was about offering to take us on his car."

In the lantern light I thought I saw that she was
beginning to look enigmatic, but I couldn't trust my
eyes at this moment. There were a good many
stars floating before them — not heavenly — the kind
I should have liked to make Talleyrand see.

"Yes, miss, I heard," I said brutally, "and, of.
course, if you and your aunt would like that, I could
wire to Mr. Barrow, the gentleman who went round
the Chateau with us to-day, that I was free to take
an engagement with him and his daughter."

She turned on me like a flash. "Oh, is that what
you are thinking of? Well — certainly you may
consider yourself free — perfectly free. You are under
no contract. Go! go to-morrow — or even to-night
if you wish. Leave me here with my car. I can
go back to Paris, or — or somewhere."

"But I thought you were going on with the French
gentleman?" I said.

"I should not think of going with him," she
announced icily.

"You said "

"I said he invited me. I never said I meant to
go; I couldn't have said it. For I should hate going
with him. There would be no fun in that at all.
I want my own car or none. But that need not
matter to you. Go with your Barrows."

78 The Lightning Conductor

"Begging your pardon, miss, I don't want to go
with any Barrows."

"But you said "

" If you wished to get rid of me "

"/ wish 'to get rid of you! I don't repudiate
my — business arrangements in that way."

"May I stop on with you, then, miss? " I pleaded at
my meekest. "I'll try and do the best I can about
the car."

"Oh, do you really think there's any hope? " She
clasped her hands and looked at me as if I were
an oracle. Her eyelashes are very long. I wonder
why they are so charming on her and so abominable
on a Frenchman?

" I've got an idea in my mind, miss," said I, "that
might make everything all right."

"Brown," said she, "you are a kind of leather
angel."

Then we both laughed. And I am afraid it oc-
curred to her that the ground we were touching was
not calculated to bear a lady and her mecanicien, for
she turned and ran away

It was not yet ten o'clock, and I had something
better to do than crawl into the bed of straw that
had been offered me. It was not much more than
ten miles to Amboise, and opening the great gate
as quietly as I could, I stepped out upon the white
road and set off briskly for the town, my Plan guiding
me like a big bright beacon.

What I meant to do — what I was meaning and
wanting at this present moment to do — is this.

Being now at Amboise, having knocked up the

The Lightning Conductor 79

hotel porter on arriving, I shall let poor old Almond
sleep the sleep of the just until the earliest crack
of dawn. Then I shall wake him, have my Napier
got ready — if that hasn't been done overnight — pay
him, press an extra tip into his not unwilling palm,
pack him off to England, home, and beauty, after
which I shall romp back to the sleeping farmhouse
on my own good car.

My story to Miss Randolph will be that while in
Blois yesterday I heard from my master. He is
called back to England in a great hurry, wants to
leave his car, and would be delighted to let it out
on hire at reasonable terms if driven by a good, re-
sponsible man — like me. I suppose I shall have
to name a sum — say a louis a day — or she'll suspect
some game.

She is sure to snatch at a chance, as a drowning
man at a straw, and I pat myself on the back for my
inspiration. I am looking forward to a new lease
of life with the Napier.

The window grows grey; I must call Almond.
How the Plan works out you shall hear in my next.
Au revoir, then.

Your more than ever excited friend,

JACK WINSTON.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

AMBOISE,

November Someihing-or-Oihert

Dear old Lamb,

Did you know that you were the papa of a
chameleon? An eccentric combination. But Aunt
Mary says she has found out that I am one — a
chameleon, I mean; but I don't doubt she thinks
me an "eccentric combination" too. And, any-
"way, I don't see how I can help being changeable.
Circumstances and motor-cars rule dispositions.

I wrote you a long letter from Blois, but little did
I think then — no, that isn't the way to begin. I
believe my starting-handle must have gone wrong,
to say nothing of my valves — I mean nerves.

Last night we broke down at the other end of
nowhere, and rather than desert Mr. Micawber, alias
the automobile, I decided to stop till next morning
at a wayside farmhouse — the sort of place, as Aunt
Mary said, "where anything might happen."

Of course, I needn't have stayed. The French-
man I told you about in my last letter offered to
take us and some of our luggage on to Amboise
on his little car; but I didn't feel like saying "yes"
'to that proposal, and I was sorry for poor Brown,
-who had worked like a Trojan. Besides, to stay

Bo

The Lightning Conductor 8r

was an adventure. Monsieur Talleyrand stopped
too, and we had quite a nice supper in a big farm
kitchen, but not as big as the room which the people-
gave Aunt Mary and me — a very decent room, with-
two funny high beds in it. I couldn't sleep much,
because of remorse about something I had done.
I'm ashamed to tell you what, but you needn't
worry, for it only concerns the car. And then
I didn't know in the least how we were to get on
again next day, as this time the automobile had
taken measures to secure itself a good long rest.

I'd dropped off to sleep after several hours of
staring into the dark and wondering if Brown by
some inspiration would get us out of our scrape,
when a hand, trying to find my face, woke me up.
"It's come!" I thought. "They're going to murder
us." And I was just on the point of shrieking with
all my might to Brown to save me, when I realized
that the hand was Aunt Mary's; it was Aunt Mary's
voice also saying, in a sharp whisper, "What's that?
What's that?"

"That," I soon discovered, was a curious sound
which I suppose had roused Aunt Mary, and sent
her bounding out of bed, like a baseball, in her old
age. I forgot to tell you that in one corner of our
room, behind a calico curtain, was a queer, low
green door, which we had wondered at and tried to
open, but found locked. Now the sound was coming
from behind that door. It was a scuffling and stum-
bling of feet, and a creepy, snorting noise.

Even I was frightened, but it wouldn't do, on
account of discipline, to let Aunt Mary guess. I

82 The Lightning Conductor

just sort of formed a hollow square, told myself
that my country expected me to do my duty, jumped
up, found matches, lighted our one candle, and with
it the lamp of my own courage. That burned so
brightly, I had presence of mind to take the key out
of the other door and try it in the mysterious green
lock. It didn't fit, but it opened the door; and what
do you think was on the other side? "Why, a ladder-
like stairway, leading down into darkness. But it
was only the darkness of the family stable, and
instead of beholding our landlord and landlady
digging a grave for us in a business-like manner,
as Aunt Mary fully expected, we saw two cows and
a horse, and three of those silly, surprised-looking
French chickens which are always running across
roads under our automobile's nose.

This was distinctly a relief. We locked the door,
and laid ourselves down to sleep once more. But —
for me — that was easier said than done. I lay
staring into blackness, thinking of many things, until
the blackness seemed to grow faintly pale, the way
old Mammy Luke's face used to turn ashy when she
was frightened at her own slave stories, which she
was telling me. The two windows took form, like
grey ghosts floating in the dark, and I knew dawn
must be coming; but as I watched the squares
growing more distinct, so that I was sure I saw and
didn't imagine them, a light sprang up. It wasn't
the dawn-light, but something vivid and sudden.
I was bewildered, for I'd been in a dozy mood.
I flew up, all dazed and stupid, to patter across
the cold, painted floor on my poor little bare feet.

The Lightning Conductor 83

Our room overlooked the courtyard, and there,
almost opposite the window where I stood, a great
column of intense yellow flame was rising like a
fountain of fire — straight as a poplar, and almost
as high. I never saw anything so strange, and
I could hardly believe that it wasn't a dream, until
A voice seemed to say inside of me, "Why, it's your
far ikafs on -fire I "

In half a second I was sure the voice was right,
ftnd at once I was quite calm. How the car could
have got on fire of its own accord was a mystery,
unless it had sportaneous combustion, like that awful
old man of Dickens, who burnt up and left a greasy
black smudge; but there was no time to think, and
t only kept saying to myself, as I hurried to slip
on a few clothes (the sketchiest toilet I ever made,
just a mere outline), how lucky it was that my
automobile stood in the courtyard where there was
no roof, instead of being in the barn, like Monsieur
Talleyrand's. And I knew that Brown slept in the
barn, so that, if it had happened there, he might have
been burnt to death in his sleep, which made me feel
fis if I should have to faint away, even to imagine.

But I didn't faint. I tore out of the room, as soon
as I was dressed, with my long, fur-lined motoring
coat over my "nighty," and yelled "Fire!" at the
top of my lungs. But I forgot to yell in French,
so of course the farm people couldn't have under-
stood what was the matter, unless they'd seen the
light from their windows. It was still dark in the
shut-up house, but somehow I found my way down-
stairs, and to the door by which we'd all come

84 The Lightning Conductor

trooping in the evening before. Nobody had ap-
peared yet (though I fancied I heard Aunt Mary's
frantic voice), so I concluded that the farmer and
liis wife must be outside in the fields about their
day's work, for these French peasants rise with the
dawn, or before it.

I pulled open the door, and the light of the fire
struck right at my eyes, which had got used to the
darkness in the passage. There was the pillar of
fire, as bright and straight and amazingly high as
ever, not a trace of the car to be seen in the midst ;
but silhouetted against the yellow screen of flame
was a tall black figure which I recognized as Brown's.
He was standing still, looking calmly on, actually
with his hands in his pockets, instead of trying to
put out the fire, and I was dumbfounded, for always
before he had shown himself so resourceful.

I stood still, too, a minute, for I was surprised.
Aunt Mary was having hysterics in one of our
windows which she'd thrown open; and Monsieur
Talleyrand had come close behind me, it seemed,
though I didn't know that then.

I heard the queer clucking and roaring of the fire
which was drinking gallons of petrol, but the only
thing I really thought of was Brown with his hands
in his pockets while my car was burning up. I
didn't love it — at least I hadn't, and the night before
I had behaved to it not at all in a gentlemanly
manner, but I couldn't have stood by like that to
watch it die without moving a finger.

"Oh, Brown! " I gasped out, running to him, so
close that the fire was hot on my face. " Oh, Brown,

The Lightning Conductor 85

how can you? Anybody would think that you wer*

"And he is! " cried a voice in French at my bac-ff.
"It was he who set your automobile on fire, made-
moiselle. I myself, who tell you, saw him do it."
I whisked round, and there stood Monsieur T alley,
rand, looking very picturesque in an almost theatrical
deshabille, with the firelight shining on him, just as if
it were a scene on the stage.

Brown faced round too, and at the same instant,
the fire having drunk the last drop of petrol, the
flame suddenly died down, and there fell a curious
silence after the roaring of the fire, which had been
like a blast. The woodwork of the car, the hood
and the upper part, as well as the wooden wheels,
had all disappeared — the flame had swallowed and
digested them. Of my varnished and dignified car
there remained only a heap of twisted bits of iron,
glowing a dull red. In the grey dawn we must have
looked like witches at some secret and unholy rite.
The going out of the light had an odd effect upon
us three. When Monsieur Talleyrand launched his
accusation at Brown, he had thrown up his chin, and
the light, striking on his eyeballs, made them glow
like red sparks. But with the dying of the light, the
flash in his eyes died too; and his face changed
to a disagreeable, ashy grey. At the same minute,
when I turned to Brown, it was his eyes that glowed,
but the light seemed to come from inside.

t forget whether I ever told you that Brown *~
a very good-looking fellow, too good-looking for
a mere chauffeur. His face is like his name —

86 The Lightning Conductor

brown; his eyes are brown too, and they can almost
speak. One can't help noticing these things, even
in one's chauffeur. If he weren't a chauffeur, one
might certainly take him for a gentleman. Some
things really are a pity! But never mind.

Brown looked at Monsieur Talleyrand, and then
he said, "You are a liar." Oh, my goodness, I
expected murder!

Monsieur Talleyrand gave a sort of leap.

"Scoundrel, hog, canaille!" he stammered, tremb-
ling all over. "To be insulted by an English cad,
a common chauffeur, that a gentleman cannot call
out, an incendiary "

But here Brown broke in with a "Silence!" that
made me jump. And the funny part was that it was
he who looked the gentleman, and Monsieur Talley-
rand the cad— quite a little, mean cad, though he is
really handsome, with eyelashes you'd have to
measure with a tape. That awful "Silence!" seemed
to blow his words down his throat like a gust of
wind, and while he was getting breath Brown fol-
lowed up his first shot; but this time it was aimed
my way.

"Do you believe what that coward says?" he flung
at me, without even taking hold of the words with
"Miss" for a handle. Between the two men and the
excitement, I gasped instead of answering, and
perhaps he took silence for consent, though that
is such an old-fashioned theory, especially when
it concerns girls. Anyway, he seemed to grow three
or four inches taller, and his chin got squarer. "So
far from burning your car," said he (and you could

The Lightning Conductor 87

have made a block of ice out of each word), "I
have been to Amboise to hire a car for you, and
thought I had been lucky in securing my old master's,

"As this expedition has occupied the whole night.
I have really had no time for plotting, even if there
had been a motive, or if I were the sort of man for
such work. I hoped you knew I wasn't. But
there" — and he pointed to the road outside the
open gate — "is my master's car, and the motor is
still hot enough to prove——"

"I don't want it to prove," I found breath to
exclaim. "Of course, I know you didn't burn my

99

" But if I say I saw him," cut in Monsieur Talley-
rand.

"Pooh!" said I. It was the only word I could
think of that went "to the spot," and I hurried on
to Brown. "All I minded was seeing you with your
hands in your pockets. It didn't seem like you."

"You don't understand," said he. "Just as I
opened the doors to drive in the car I'd brought,
I saw at a glance that there was something queer
about yours. The front seat was off; and as I came
nearer I found the screw had been taken out of the
petrol tank. With that I caught sight of a flame
creeping along a tightly twisted piece of cotton
waste — the stuff one cleans cars with. Then I knew
that someone had planned to set fire to the car and
leave himself time to escape. I sprang at it to
knock away the waste, but I was too late. That
instant the vapour caught, and I was helpless to do
any good, because sand, and a huge lot of it, was the

88 The Lightning Conductor

only thing that might have put the fire out, if one
could have got it, and then gone near enough to
throw it on. Since there was none, the only thing
to do was to stand by; and as I'd scorched my
hands a little, I suppose I instinctively put them
in my pockets."

Monsieur Talleyrand laughed. "You tell your
story very well," said he, "but "

He didn't get farther than that "but," for just then
up came running the farmer and his wife from the
fields, where they had seen the flames. They began
chattering shrilly, in a dreadful state about their
buildings, but Brown quieted them down, pointing
out that no harm had been done to anything of
theirs, and that the fire was out. "Now," he said,
"since I didn't burn tne car, who did? "

I looked at Monsieur Talleyrand because Brown
was looking at him, or rather glaring, when suddenly
a loud exclamation from the farmer and his wife
made me turn to see what was going to happen
next. What I saw was the most wonderful old
figure hobbling out of the house, through the door
I'd left open — a mere knotted thread of an old thing,
in a red flannel nightgown, I think it must have been,
and a few streaks of grey hair hanging from a night-
cap that tied up its flabby chin. It was the old
woman who had breathed so much in the dark the
night before; and no wonder they exclaimed at see-
ing her crawling out of doors, hardly dressed.

Somehow I felt frightened; she was just like a
witch — horrifying, but pathetic too, so old, so little
Ufe left in her. She would have come hobbling on

The Lightning Conductor 89

into the courtyard, but the farmer stopped her; and
there she stood on the door-sill, raising herself up
and up on her stick, until suddenly she clutched
the farmer's arm and pointed the stick straight at
Monsieur Talleyrand, gabbling out something which
I couldn't understand.

The farmer had just been going to hustle her in-
side the house, but he changed his mind. "She says
you set fire to the automobile," he exclaimed; "she
saw it from the window. She thinks you will murder
us all. Monsieur, my mother has still her senses.
She does not tell foolish lies. You must go out of
my house."

"Monstrous!" cried Monsieur Talleyrand. "Am
I to be accused on the word of a crazy old witch?
I advise you to be careful what you say."

"Here is something else, which speaks for itself,"
Brown said. "Look!" and he pointed to the ground
not far from the gnawed bones of my car. We
looked, and saw some wisps of the stuff he had
called cotton- waste, twisted up and saturated with
oil. "That was used to fire the petrol," he went on.
"There was none like it on our car, but you carried
plenty in yours. I've seen you use it, and so, I think,
has Miss Randolph."

For an instant Talleyrand seemed to be taken
aback, and he looked so pale in the dim light that I
was almost going to be sorry for him, when with a
sudden inspiration he struck an attitude before me.
He had the air of ignoring the others, forgetting that
they existed.

"Mademoiselle," he said in a low, really beautiful

^o The Lightning Conductor

voice, that might have drawn tears from an audience
if he had been the leading man cruelly mistaken for
a neighbouring villain, "chere mademoiselle, I did what
these canaille accuse me of. Yes, I did it! But they
cannot understand why. Only you are high enough
to understand. It was — because of my great love for
you. All is to be forgiven to such love. Cheerfully,
a hundred times over, will I pay for this material
damage I have done. I am not poor, except in
lacking your love. To gain an opportunity of win-
ning it, to take you from your brutal chauffeur, who
is not fit to have delicate ladies trusted to his care, I
did what I have done, meaning to lay my car, myself,
all that I have and am, figuratively at your feet."

If he had really, instead of "figuratively," I'm sure
I couldn't have resisted kicking him, which would
have been unladylike. How could I ever have thought
he was nice ? Ugh ! I could have strangled him with
his own eyelashes! Brown was right about him, after
all. I wonder why it doesn't please one more to find
out that other people are right?

" I don't want you to pay," said I. " I only want
you to go away."

I've a dim impression that I emphasised these
words with a gesture, and that he seized my hand
before I could pull it back. I also have a dim im-
pression of exclaiming, "Oh, Brown!" in a frightened
voice — just as silly as if I'd been an early- Victorian
female. I wished I hadn't, but it was too late.
Brown, evoked, was not so easily revoked. A whirl-
wind seemed to catch Monsieur Talleyrand up, but
it was really Brown. They went together to visit a

The Lightning Conductor 91

disagreeable, shiny green pond in the middle of the
farmyard. Brown stopped at the brink; but Mon-
sieur Talleyrand didn't stop — I suspect Brown knew
why. He went on, and in. And, oh, Dad! to save
my life, I couldn't help laughing. All my excitement
and everything went into that laugh — the half-crying
kind I used to call the " boo-higgles " when I was a
little girl — you remember?

I was afraid the wretch might hear me, so I turned
and fairly ran for the house. Brown took some long
steps, and reached me before I got there, apparently
not the least concerned in the splashing sounds which
so much interested everybody else.

"About my master's car, miss," said he coolly.
"Will you have it? He was at Amboise. I'd heard
from him there, that if I knew of anyone wanting to
hire a car, his was in the market for the next few
weeks, as he was suddenly called away, and didn't
want to take it. It's a good car — the best I ever
drove — and he's willing to let it go cheap, as he trusts
me to drive, and it's an accommodation to him."

"Oh, I'm delighted to have it," I answered, not
stopping to ask the price, because details didn't
seem to matter at that moment. "It's — it's just
like the ram caught in the bushes, isn't it? And — I
xlon't know how to thank you enough for every-
thing." I can't tell exactly what I meant by that,
except that I meant a lot.

"There's nothing to thank me for, miss," said
Brown, quite respectful again; but a queer little
smile lurked in the corners of his mouth. "You
must be hungry," he remarked. "Shall I ask them

92 The Lightning Conductor

to have breakfast prepared by the time you're—-
ready?"

I believe he was going to say "dressed," and
stopped for fear of hurting my feelings. I only
stayed long enough to throw a "Yes, please," over
my shoulder. But when I was upstairs with Aunt
Mary, my face feeling rather hot, I didn't begin to
make my toilet; I went and "peeked" out of the
window.

That unspeakable Frenchman was shaking himself
like a big dog, and sneaking towards the house, with
the farmer at his heels. The farmer was a big fellow,
and dependable; still, I ran and locked the door.
I suppose the Beast finished dressing and packed
his bag. I heard nothing; but half an hour later
(I'd bathed and dressed like lightning, for once),
when we were just sitting down to breakfast, and
Brown had come into the room to ask a question,
there was a light pattering on the stairs; the front
door opened, and somebody went out. Two minutes
later came the whirring of a motor, and I jumped up.

"Oh, Brown!" I exclaimed, "if he should have
taken your car!"

"No fear of that," said Brown. "I know the
sound just as I know one human voice from another.
That's his Pieper. It's all right."

Still I wasn't at ease. "But he may have done
something bad to yours. He's capable of anything,"
I said. "Do let's go and see."

;Brown flushed up a little. " I'll go," he said. He
was off on the word, racing across the farmyard. I
couldn't eat my breakfast till he came back, which he

The Lightning Conductor 93

did in a few minutes. I knew by his face before he
spoke that something was wrong. " I was a fool to
leave the car for even a second till he was out of the
way," said the poor fellow. "Every tyre gashed.
No doubt he'd have liked to smash up the car alto-
gether if he'd had time, but his object was to do his
worst and get off scot free. He's done both. It's
thanks to you and your quick thought that the
damage is so small."

"If it hadn't been for me he wouldn't have been
here," I almost wept. "Now we're delayed again
just when I began to hope that all might be well."

" All shall be well," answered Brown encouragingly.
"We'll go ' on the rims ' as far as Amboise."

I didn't know what it was to go on the rims, but
When we'd settled up with the farmer, and I'd said
a last, long good-bye to my car's bones (which I made
the landlord a present of), I found out. It's some-
thing like "going on your uppers." I don't need to
explain that, do I? But the car is such a beauty
that seeing it with, its tyres en dishabille seemed an
indignity. Brown couldn't help showing his pride
in it, and I don't wonder. He is certainly a ' ' Mascot "
to me, for he has got me out of every scrape I've
been in since he "crossed my path," as the melo-
dramas say. And now this lovely car! On the way
to Amboise he told me what it was to be let for.
Only twenty francs a day. I protested, because
Rattray had said that good cars couldn't be hired for
less than twenty pounds a week ; but Brown explained
that this was because his master liked him to drive it,
and that really it wasn't so cheap as I thought. 3

94 The Lightning Conductor

suppose it's all right. Funny, though, that I shottld
have the car of that Mr. John Winston, whose mother
— Lady Brighthelmston — I met in Paris, and pro-
mised to meet again in Cannes. Fancy Aunt Mary
and me lolling luxuriously (I love that word ''lolling")
in a snow-white car with scarlet cushions, all the brass-
work gleaming like a fireman's helmet — the rakiest,
smartest car imaginable! There are two seats in
front and a roomy tonneau behind. The steering and
other arrangements are quite different from those in
the poor dead Dragon — rest its wicked soul! There's
a steering-wheel, and below it two ducky little han-
dles that do everything. One's the "advance spark-
ing lever," the other the "mixture lever." There are
no horrid belts to break themselves — and your heart
at the same time, but instead a "change speed gear"
and a "clutch." I had my first lesson in driving,
sitting by Brown on the way to Amboise. He
teaches one awfully well, and I was perfectly happy
learning, especially when I found that the faster we
went the easier the dear thing is to steer. I was so
interested that I didn't know a bit what the road was
like, except that it was good and white and mostly
level, so that when Brown suddenly said "There is
the Chateau of Amboise," I was quite startled.

Luckily he was driving again by that time, or I
should probably have shot us into the river instead
of turning to the bridge; for we were on the other
side of the Loire looking across to the castle.

You poor, dear, stay-at-home Dad, to think of your
never having seen any of these lovely places that
you've nobly sent me to browse among ? You say

The Lightning Conductor 95

you admire Wall Street more than French chateaux,
and that when you want a grand view you can go
and look at Brooklyn Bridge or the statue of Liberty
by night; but you don't know what you're missing.
And if travelling would really bore you, why do you
like me to describe things, so that I can "give you a
picture though my eyes"?

I wonder if girls who have lived all their lives in
old, old countries can have the same sort of awed,
surprised, almost dream-like feeling that comes to me
when I see these great feudal castles that are like
history in stone? Yes, in stone, and yet the stone
seems alive too as if it were the -flesh of history; and
as I think of all the things that have happened
behind the splendid walls, I can hear history's heart
beating as if it and the world were young with me.

This chateau country of the Loire must be one of
the most interesting spots on earth, centring as it
did the old Court life of France, and Brown says it
really is so. He has travelled tremendously and
remembers everything, though he is nothing but a
chatiffeur.

Each place we have come to I have thought must
be the best; but I know that no other castle will
make me take Amboise down off the pedestal I've
set it on. in my mind.

As I glanced up at it in the sunshine the great
white carved fafade dazzled me. It looked as if it
had been cut out of ivory. The bridge rests on an
island in the middle of the wide, yellow, slow-moving
stream of the Loire, which has a curiously still surface
like ice. Brown drove slowly without my having to

96 The Lightning Conductor

ask. He's wonderful that way. He always knows
what you are feeling, as if you had telegraphed him
the news. And there before us lay the little town of
Amboise, sprinkled along the river-bank as if each
house were a votive offering on the shrine of the
Chateau towering above on its plateau of rock.

I couldn't make out the architecture at first. The
castle was just a vast, dazzling complication of enor-
mous round towers, bastions, terraces, balconies, and
crenellations. Oh, those balconies! Instantly I could
see poor little fainting Queen Mary held up by wicked
Catherine de Medici — the record wickedest mother-
in-law of history — to watch the execution of the
Huguenots. And then the row of heads hanging
from the balcony afterwards, like terrible red gar-
goyles! When we went into the Chateau later the
custodian, or whatever you call him, showed us where
the fine ironwork was stained and rusted with the
Huguenots' blood.

I was very angry with Aunt Mary because she
kept her nose in her Baedeker, and preferred reading
about the castle to seeing it when she had the chance.
I have my opinion of people who won't take their
Baedeker in doses either before or after meals of
sight-seeing; but Aunt Mary spreads it so thick over
hers that what's underneath is lost.

We drove to a nice little hotel tucked away at the
foot of the Chateau, for dtjeuner, and to get rid
of our luggage, for we'd have to stop at Amboise
till the four new tyres (which Brown now wired for)
should arrive from Paris. We had so many courses
that I grew quite impatient, for I wanted to be off to

The Lightning Conductor 97

the castle. And to save time I insisted on Brown
lunching with us. That's happened before several
times, so that it doesn't seem at all strange now,
though Aunt Mary fussed at first, and even I felt
rather funny. But the queer part is, it's so much
more difficult to remember that Brown's not a
gentleman than to make an effort to be civil to him
as if he were one. Rattray at the table was beyond
words, and so are a lot of Frenchmen who ought to
know better; but — you'll laugh at me — I don't see
how a duke could eat any better than Brown, or have
nicer hands and nails; though how he does it with
the car to clean is more than I can tell.

We came towards the castle, after dtfeuner, from
the back through the town, which was gay with booths
and blue blouses and pretty peasant girls, because the
market was being held. We went right through the
crowd, up, up a sloping path, where suddenly we
were in a restful silence, after the chattering and
chaffering below. And I felt as if we had got into
a novel of Scott's ; for if we'd been his characters
he would have brought us up short at a secretive
door in a tower, just like the one where we had to
knock. One couldn't guess what would be on the
other side of that tower; and it was like walking
on through the next chapter of the same novel
(walking slowly and with dignity, so that we might
"live up to" the author of our being) to wander
up a steep road leading to a plateau and reach the
still, formal garden with the great castle rising out
of it.

On this plateau a lovely thing simply took my

98 The Lightning Conductor

eyes captive and wouldn't let them go. It was the
most perfect gem of a little chapel out of dreamland.
Brown said it was "a jewel of the pure Gothic, one
of the most precious of the florid Icind in France."
Comic to have one's chauffeur talking to one like
that, isn't it? But I'm used to it now, and feel quite
injured if Brown happens not to know something I
ask him about.

I never realised what an important lady Anne
of Brittany was, till I was introduced to her sweet
little ermine at Blois. Brown hinted then that
I would keep on realising it more and more as we
drove through the Loire country, and so I do.
This chapel was hers — built for her, and I envy her
having it. Couldn't you, Dad dear, just make a bid,
and have it taken over for our garden at Lennox?
But no ! that would be sacrilege. It's almost
sacrilege even to joke about it. Yet, oh, that
carving of St. Hubert and his holy stag over the
door! I've no jewellery so lovely as that cameo in
stone; and I've got to leave it behind in Europe.

Poor Charles the Eighth, too, seemed to come
to us like a human, every day young man one knew
when we saw the low doorway where he knocked
his head and killed himself, running in a great hurry
to play tennis. How little he guessed when he
started that he should never have that game, and
why! I wonder if Anne was sorry when he died, or
if she liked having another wedding and being a
queen all over again when she married Louis the
Twelfth?

I should have thought more about the ladies' 'love

The Lightning Conductor 99

affairs, only I got so interested in an oubliette, and
in a perfectly Titanic round tower, with an inclined
plane corkscrewing up, round and round inside
it, so broad and so gradual that horses and car-
riages used in old, old days to be driven from the
town-level up to the top. "Only think what fun,
Brown," I couldn't help saying, "if we could drive
the car up here!" "The idea! " sniffed Aunt Mary.
"As if they'd allow such a thing! " But Brown
didn't answer; he just looked thoughtfully at the
gradient.

We went up, too, on the top of one of the great
towers of the castle itself, and it was glorious to
stand there looking away over the windings of the
river. We were at a bend midway between Blois
and Tours, and ever so far off we could see two
little horns sticking up over the undulations of
the land. They were the towers of the cathedral
of Tours; and in that same direction Brown showed
me a queer thing like a long, thin finger pointing
at the sky — the Lanterne of Rochecorbon. They
tised to flash signals from it all the way to Amboise,
and so on to Blois, when any horror happened
•with which they were particularly pleased, like
a massacre of Huguenots.

Now, most patient gentleman, at last I've finished
my harangue. I'm ashamed to think how long it is,
but I'm writing wrapped up in a warm coat, under
a tilleul in the Chateau garden, where I've been
allowed to bring my campstool. Do you know what
a tilleul is? I don't believe you do. I didn't till
the other day; but I shan't tell you, except that the

ioo The Lightning Conductor

very name suggests to me leisured ease and saunter-
ing courtiers. You must come over to France and
find out — and incidentally fetch me home — only not
yet, please, oh, not yet. As for the tilleul, if you've
any romance left in your dear old body you'd love
sitting under it, even in winter. If it were summer,
with the limes in blossom — well, the best way to ex-
press my feeling is to remark that if, in June moon-
light, under a tilleul, a man I hated should propose to
me, I'd believe for the moment I loved him and say
"Yes — yes!" But you need not be frightened; it
isn't summer or moonlight, and there's no man except
Brown within a hundred miles of your silly

MOLLY.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

TOURS, December 3.

Three days since I wrote, blessed old Thing, but
It seems three times three, for all the hours have
been as cramfull as you used to fill my stocking at
Christmas.

We couldn't get away from Amboise, as we ex-
pected, because the tyres didn't arrive till late in
the evening. I knew it must be a long, tedious
business fixing them on, so I never dreamed of
starting next morning; but when morning came, and
with it the chambermaid and my bath, there was
a note from Brown, written in a hand a lot nicer
than my poor "fist," announcing that the car was
ready, and if I would like a surprise, might he
"respectfully suggest" that I should come down-
stairs as soon as possible. You can imagine that
I didn't "stand on the order of my going. " My hair
crinkled with surprise at being done so quickly, and
I was in such a hurry that I nearly — but not quite —
slid down the balusters.

Brown was at the front door, with the car all
politely polished, and seeming to stand upon tiptoe
on its big new tyres. But smart as the car was, it
was nothing to the chauffeur. He looked like a sort
of male Cinderella just after the fairy godmother

IO2 The Lightning Conductor

had waved her wand; only instead of a ball dress
she had given him, in place of his black leather,
a suit of grey clothes; one of those high, turnover
collars I love on a good-looking man; a dark neck-
tie, and what we call a "Derby" hat and the English
call a "bowler. " He was nice! I don't know if I'm
a judge of a man's clothes, but to me they seemed
as good form as any tailor in the world could cut.
Perhaps the Honourable John gave them to him.
Poor dear! he's far too fine a fellow really to have
to wear another man's cast-off garments; but I
suppose Providence must know best, and, anyhow,
I'm sure the H. J. never looked half as nice in the
things.

Brown had on also a mysterious air, which seemed
to go with the clothes, and he asked if I'd mind
taking a short run with him, without knowing before-
hand where I was going. I said that, on the contrary,
I should like it. That seemed to please him. He
helped me in (not that I needed it), the car started
with a touch, and we began to thread the streets
of the town behind the Chateau, I wondering what
was going to happen. When I had been in this car
before, it was to travel "on the rims," you know.
Now, on our four-plump new Michelins from Paris
it was like being in a balloon, so easy was the motion
even over the badly paved streets.

We wound round under the high wall of the
Chateau, and came in a few minutes to a huge
gateway. As we slowed down this gateway opened
mysteriously from within to show a dim corkscrew
of a road winding upward. I opened my mouth to

The Lightning Conductor 103

ask an astonished question; then I thought better
of it and kept still, though I know my eyes must
have been snapping when Brown actually drove the
car in. The gateway clanged behind us, as if by
enchantment, shutting us into a twilight region, and
behold, we were mounting the incline of the great
tower, up which, perhaps, nobody had ever driven
since the days of Mary Stuart.

Wasn't it kind of Brown to remember my wish
(which even I had forgotten!) to drive up the tower?
I could hardly thank him enough for such a new
and thrilling sensation as it was, twisting up and up,
seeming to float in the vast hollow of the passage,
the exquisite carved and vaulted roof giving back
a, rythmical reverberation of the throbbing of our
motor.

I couldn't even say "thank you," though, except
in my thoughts, till we got to the top (which we did
much too soon), for somehow it would have broken
the charm to speak. But I think Brown understood
that I appreciated it all, and what he had done.

At the top a big doorway stood open, and by it
one of the delightful, grizzled, dignified old dears
who must have been made guardians of the Chateau,
because they fit so well into the picture. I thought,
though, that this one looked different from before,
for some reason quite flurried and almost scared.
I suppose it must have been the car and the unusual-
ness that upset him; but Brown drove out splendidly,
stopping in the terrace-garden.

"At that door," said the charming old fellow,
"Francis the First of France received Henry the

IO4 The Lightning Conductor

Eighth of England, who with a train of a hundred
knights rode up the sloping way in the tower. To-day
is the first time that an automobile has ever been
inside the doors; therefore, mademoiselle, you have
just been making history." And he bowed so
deliciously that I could have cried, because I hadn't
my purse with me to give him a "guerdon"; that
would have been the only word, if I had had it.
Fortunately Brown had. Something yellow glittered
as it passed from hand to hand, and the old French-
man (so dramatic, like most of his countrymen)
bowed again and took off his hat with a flourish.
If the something hadn't been yellow, but only white,
I wonder if he would have let us make that splendid,
sweeping circle round the gardens before we plunged
back into the cool gloom of the tower?

Oh, that descent ! I feel breathless, just remember-
ing it, but it was a glorious kind of breathlessness,
like you feel when you go tobogganing — only more
so. Brown took it at tremendous speed, but I wasn't
a bit afraid, for I trust him utterly as a driver. If
he said he could take me safely over Niagara Falls,
and looked straight at me in a way he has when
he said it, I believe I'd go — unless, of course, you
objected!

I found myself thinking of Poe's descent of the
Maelstrom, and when I said so to Brown afterwards,
it turned out that he'd read it. He had the car
perfectly in hand, and steered it to a hair's breadth.
We were down in a moment — or it seemed so; and
coming out into the bright little streets was like
waking up after a strange dream. In three minutes

The Lightning Conductor 105

more we were at the door of our hotel, and I really
was asking myself if I had dreamed it.

"Brown," said I, "I told you once before that you
were a leather angel. Now I believe you are a grey
tweed Genie. This has been the nicest morning of
my life. But you really must tell me how much you
paid that custodian, and let me give you back the
money at once."

He interrupted himself in the midst of a beaming
smile to wrinkle his eyebrows together. "It's been
a nice morning for me, too, miss," said he quite
humbly; "but it will half spoil it if you won't let it
stand as it is. It was only a few francs, and as you
pay me a good screw, I can well afford it. You're
always so good, that I know you'd be sorry to hurt
my feelings."

Well, of course I would; so I couldn't say any
more, could I? Though before all these motor-car
wonders began it would have felt odd to take a
"treat" from one's servant.

Now, Dad, I'm getting conscience-stricken, and
keep wondering with every paragraph (especially
what I call my "descriptive" paragraphs) if I'm
boring you. I won't give you our daily programme
en masse. I'll just sum things up by saying that
we've simply lived, moved, and had our being in, on,
or at castles. This country of the Loire is a sort of
fairyland, where everybody had a castle, or at the
very least a lordly dwelling-place that was more
fortress than private house. You can't look up or
down the river but that on every hill you see a
chateau, with enough history clustering about it to

io6 The Lightning Conductor

make up a fat volume. How they all escaped the
Revolution is a marvel. But they have; and if
they've been much restored, it is so cleverly done
that the most critical eyes are deceived.

If I could live in one of the "show" chateaux, I'd
choose Chenonceaux. We drove to it on the day of
the Tower, as I've labelled it in my book of memory,
"taking it in" on our way to Tours. It's no use
your making a note of that wish of mine, though
Dad, and trying to buy it, because somebody else
has done that already. But if you can find a river
as pretty as the Cher (an appropriate name for the
little daughter of the Loire, on which — over which,
literally, Chenonceaux stands), you might build me
one on the same pattern, so I'll give you a general
idea of what the castle is like.

Let me see, what is it like? To make a com-
parison would be giving to an airy nothing a local
habitation and a name. Not that Chenonceaux is
nothing — quite the opposite; but it leaves in the
mind an impression of airiness and gaiety, sweet and
elusive as one of those quaint French chansons you
like me to sing you, with my guitar, on a summer
evening. I think, even if I hadn't been told, I should
have felt instinctively that it must have been built to
please a pretty, capricious woman. If such a woman
could be turned into a house, she would look like
Chenonceaux, and wouldn't suffer by the change.
Perhaps Diane de Poitiers isn't a proper object of
sympathy for a well-brought-up young lady like
Chauncy Randolph's daughter; but I can't help pity-
ing her, because that horrid old frump of a Catherine

The Lightning Conductor 107

de Medici grabbed it away from her before Henry the
Second was hardly cold in his grave. Think how
Diane, who had loved the place, must have felt to
fancy that stuffy Catherine in her everlasting black
dresses, squatting in her beautiful rooms! We saw
those rooms, by the way, for we came on one of the
days when people are allowed to go through the
Chateau (Brown had planned that), and the clever
millionaires who own it have had the sense and the
grace to leave everything just as it was, at least in
Catherine's time. And one can take the bad,
Catherine taste out of one's mouth by thinking of
lovely little Mary Stuart singing like a lark through
the rooms, and living there and in the garden the
happiest days that she was ever to know.

One wouldn't suppose that a gloomy, plotting mind
like Catherine's would have had a place in it for
creating beauty; but it had its one ornamental
corner, or she couldn't have thought out the bridge-
gallery thrown across the Cher, springing from the
original building and spanning the river to the farther
shore.

There are two storeys over the bridge, long cor-
ridors, all windows, and lovely green and gold
river lights, netted over the floors and walls — the
most exquisite effect. I walked there, calling up the
spirits of vanished queens and princesses — the "dear,
dead women," seeing "all the gold that used to fall
and hang about their shoulders." Oh, I've got the
quotation wrong, but it's Aunt Mary's fault, for at
this very minute she's reading aloud to herself in a
guide-book about Rousseau and a lot of other shining

Io8 The Lightning Conductor

lights who used to visit Chenonceaux when it be-
longed to Monsieur and Madame Dupin; but those
days were comparatively modern, so I don't take
much interest. Nothing at Chenonceaux seems worth
while unless it happened before the days of Charles
the Ninth.

Tours looked at first sight very sedate and grey,
after Chenonceaux, for the airy picture of the castle
had kept floating before my eyes during our run. It
seems to me we are always on the other side of the
river from things, and have to get to them by cross-
ing long bridges. We did it again at Tours, and
it was particularly long, and very fine. But it
was evening, and dim and bitterly cold; and I'm
afraid I shouldn't have paid as much attention to it
as I did if Brown hadn't said that Balzac called it
"one of the finest monuments of France." And then
in a minute, at the entrance to the town, we saw two
ghostly white statues glimmering in a wide, green
place, "There, miss, are the two tutelary geniuses of
this part of France," said Brown; "Rabelais and
Descartes." By that time we had flashed past, but I
screwed my neck round to look back at them till
I got a "crick" in it. Have you ever noticed that
most of the things people tell you to look at, or that
you particularly want to see in life, are always be-
hind your back or on one side, as if to give you the
greatest possible trouble? It seems as if there must
be a "moral in it," as Alice's Duchess would have
said.

Tours appeared that evening (I have a motive for
the emphasis) to consist of one long, straight street;

The Lightning Conductor 109

and turning to the left at the end, we pulled up at
the door of a hotel. Just an ordinary-looking hotel
it was on the outside, and I little thought what my
impressions of it would be by-and-by.

I was tired, not so much physically from what
we had done, but with the feeling that my capacity
for admiring and enjoying things had been filled up
and brimmed over, so that a drop more in would
actually hurt. Do you know that sensation? It was
just the mood to appreciate warmth and cosiness.
We got both. Aunt Mary and I had two bedrooms
opening off a sitting-room; dear, old-fashioned
rooms, and, above all, French old-fashioned, which
to me is fascinating. We made ourselves as pretty
as Nature ordained us severally to be, and went
downstairs. The dining-room was our first big sur-
prise. It was almost worthy of one of the chateaux,
with its dignified tapestried and wainscotted walls,
and its big, branching candelabra. I'm sure if we'd
been dining at a chateau we shouldn't have got a
better dinner. I don't think anything ever tasted so
good to me in my life, and I couldn't help wondering
how poor, tired Brown was faring while we lazy ones
feasted in state in the salle d manger. I thought
of you, too, for you would have loved the things to
eat. They were rich and Southern, and tasted in
one's mouth just the way the word "Provence"
sounds in one's ear. Aunt Mary had read in one
of her ubiquitous guide-books that Touraine as well
as Provence is famous for its "succulent cooking,"
and for once a guide-book seems to be right. They
had all sorts of tricky, rich little dishes for dinner —

HO The Lightning Conductor

rillettes and other things which would have made
your mouth water (though if it did, and I were by,
I'd shut my eyes), and the head waiter told me when
I asked, that they were specialties of Tours and of
the hotel. I think he must be a specialty of Tours
and the hotel too. He has the softest, most engaging,
yet dignified manner; and the way he has of setting
down a dish before you seems to season it and give
you a double appetite. There's another man in the
hotel, too, who adds to the "aroma"; he's like a
"bush to wine," or something I've heard you say.
By day he's valet de chambre, in a scarlet waistcoat
no brighter than his cheeks and eyes; at dinner
he's a waiter in correct "^ress" clothes, and then
he goes back to valeting again till midnight. He
would put me in a good temper if I had started
out to murder someone, and when he brought us the
wine list, waiting with a cherry-cheeked smile to see
what we would choose, nothing seemed worthy of
him except champagne; but champagne looked so
dissipated for two lone females. However, I had
decided to have some, to drink the health of the
new car, and perhaps — a little — to shock Aunt Mary,
when the diamond-eyed one respectfully inquired,
in nice Southern French, how \ve would like to try
a "little wine of the country, sparkling Vouvray;
quite a ladies' wine." So we compromised with
Vouvray. It was too ridiculously cheap, but it had
a delicious flavour, and Aunt Maty and I, being
merely females, agreed vhat it was more delicate than
any champagne we had ever tasted. We drank your
health and the car's, and then I had a sudden inspi-

The Lightning Conductor in

ration. "To the 'Lightning Conductor'!" said I,
raising my glass.

•''What lightning conductor? And what do you
mean?" inquired Aunt Mary.

"The one and only Lightning Conductor — Brown,"
I explained. " I have just thought of that as a good
name for him, now that he has a chance to spin us
across the world at such a pace with a new car. "

"I do hope, my dear Molly," severely remarked
Aunt Mary, setting down her glass with an indignant
little thud, "you* will not call that young man any
such thing to his face. He has already been allowed
far too many liberties, and though I must say he has
not to any great extent taken undue advantage of
them so far, he may break out at any moment." >

I'm sorry to tell you, Dad, that I said "Pooh!"
and asked her if she thought Brown were an active
volcano. Anyway, whether I call him so "to his
face" or not, the "Lightning Conductor" he is, and
will remain for me, though perhaps he wouldn't be
flattered at being "launched and christened" with
mere Vouvray.

I didn't expect to like Tours half as much as I
do. But we have been here for three days, and
though I thought at first there was only one long
street, we've found something interesting to see
every hour of daylight — so I write in the evenings
in our cosy sitting-room. Or if I don't write, I read
Balzac. I never appreciated him as I do here, on
his "native heath." I have begged Brown to name-
his master's car "Balzac," because it, too, is a "vio-
lent and complicated genius." I've gazed at the

H2 The Lightning Conductor

house where Balzac was born; I've photographed the
Balzac medallion; I've stuffed my trunks with illus-
trated editions of Balzac's books; and I've gone
to see everything I could find, which he ever spoke
about. His Curt de Tours is the most harrowing
story I ever read; and the strange little house in
the shadow of the cathedral, with one of the great
buttresses planting its enormous foot in the wee
garden, fascinates me. There lived the horrible
Mademoiselle Gamard, and there, with her, lodged
the wicked Cur£, and the poor, good little Cure, over
whose childlike, gentle stupidity and agony I half
cried my eyes out last night. But Balzac's French
discourages me. He must have had a wonderful
vocabulary. I am always finding words on every
page which I never saw before.

I don't like cathedrals much as a rule, unless
there's something really extraordinary about them;
but I love the big, grey, Gothic cathedral of Tours.
It seems a different grey from any other, not cold
and forbidding, but warm and very soft, as if it were
made of sealskin. I suppose that is partly the effect
of the beautiful carvings of the tall, tall front. I feel
as if I should like to smooth and caress it with my
hand. And it is beautiful inside. Somehow it is so
individual that it gives you a welcome, as if it meant
to be your friend.

The streets of old Tours are so intricate that
Aunt Mary and I would never have known where
to go, but Brown, who has been here before, has
guided us everywhere. He took us to see the house
of Tristan the Hermit, and an adorable little convent,

The Lightning Conductor 113

which is called the Petit St. Martin, with lovely
Renaissance carving, and actually a tilleui He
showed us the oldest house in Tours, the quaintest
building you could imagine, standing on a corner,
with lots of other very old houses on the same street.
And the Charlemagne Tower — I'm not sure, but I
liked that the best of all — and a marvellous fourteenth-
century house, a perfect lacework of carving, which
has been restored, and is called the Maison Gouin,
after the rich man who lives in it. Oh, I forgot to
tell you, I have bought your favourite Quentin
Durward, and am sandwiching him with Balzac.
Reading him over again in this country was Brown's
idea for me, and I'm obliged to him for the "tip."
Speaking of tips reminds me I really ought to give
him one — a very large one, I'm sure, And yet it
will be awkward offering it, I'm afraid. I know I
shall stammer and be an idiot generally; but I shall
prop my courage with the reflection that, after all,
he is a chauffeur, and perhaps has, in his heart, been
wondering why I haven't given him anything before.
Yesterday I saw palm trees, growing in the place,
and kissed my hand to them, because they told
me that we were on the threshold of the South.
Another thing in Tours which suggests the South,
I think, is the patisserie. Aunt Mary and I have
discovered a confectioner's to conjure with; but
Tours seems to have discovered him long ago, for
all the " beauty and fashion " of the town go there
for coffee and cakes in the afternoon. We do like-
wise— when we have time ; and yesterday Aunt
Mary ate twelve little cakes, each one different from

ii4 The Lightning Conductor

the other. Yoxi see, they are so good, and she said,
•as a conscientious tourist, she thought she ought to
try every kind in the shop, so as to know which was
nicest. But she felt odd afterwards, and refused one
or two of the best courses at dinnei .

The way that we have used our time at Tours
is very much to our credit, I think — or rather to the
Lightning Conductor's. In the mornings Brown has
taken us on excursions outside the town, and in
the afternoons, before dark, we have "done" the
town itself, as Aunt Mary would say, though I hate
the expression myself. But one whole day out of
our three we spent in running with the car to Lan-
geais and Azay-le-Rideau.

That new car is a treasure, and Brown drives as if
there were a sort of sympathy between him and it.
We go at a thrilling pace sometimes, but that is only
when we have a long, straight road, empty as far as
the eye can see. He is very considerate to "horse-
drivers," as he calls them, and he says "for the
sake of the sport" everyone driving an automobile
should be careful of the rights of other persons on
the road. He slows down at once, or even stops the
car altogether, if we meet a restive horse. Once he
got out and pacified a silly beast that was nervous,
leading it past the car, and when it was quite quiet
the old peasant who was driving exclaimed that if
all automobilists were like us there would never be
complaints. We managed to make up for lost time,
though; and when Brown "lets her out," as he calls
it, until we are going as fast as a quick train, I can
tell you it is something worth living for. When the

The Lightning Conductor 115

country is very beautiful we drive slowly, and save
our "spurts" for the uninteresting parts.

I know you've read Balzac's Duchess* de Langeais,
in English, for it was I who gave it to you. I don't
suppose she ever lived, really, at the Chateau de
Langeais or anywhere else; but the thought of her
made Langeais even more interesting to me than it
would have been if she'd been erased from the
picture.

It's a great, grey, frowning, turreted and crene-
lated fortress-house, and I felt so much obliged to
it for having kept its practicable drawbridge. We
drove almost up to the door, through a clean, very
old little town, and just opposite the entrance was a
quaint house where Brown said Rabelais had lived.
I don't believe Aunt Mary knew anything about
Rabelais. However, she eagerly Kodaked the house,
and later, when I gravely mentioned to her that
Rabelais was the kind you wouldn't allow we to
read, but of course she might, if she liked, she gave
a squeak of dismay, and threatened to waste all her
films rather than let a photographer see that one
when they went to be developed. I do hope / shan't
be an old maid !

The Parisian millionaire who owns the Chateau,
and lives in it part of the year, must be a wonder-
fully generous, public-spirited man. Only think, he
has spent thousands and thousands in restoring the
castle, in keeping up the lovely garden, and hi
having all the rooms exquisitely furnished and deco-
rated exactly in the period of wicked Louis the
Eleventh and Charles the Eighth. But instead of

n6 The Lightning Conductor

keeping these beautiful things for himself and his
family and friends, he lets everybody have the
benefit, not even making an exception of his own
private rooms. Here Anne of Brittany was very
much to the fore again, for she was married to
Charles at Langeais, and we went into the toom
of the wedding. I should have liked to take the
splendid, dignified, old major-domo, who showed us
about, home with me; but I'm sure he'd pine away
*ttid die if torn from his beloved Chateau.

We bought quaint painted iron brooches, with
Anne of Brittany's crest on them, in the town; and
then we drove away through pretty, undulating
country, which must be lovely in summer, to Azay
le-Rideau. Francis the First built it; and he cer-
tainly had as good taste in castles as in ladies, which
is saying a great deal.

This is a fairy house. It doesn't look as if it
had ever been built in the ordinary sense, but as if
somebody had dropped a huge, glimmering pearl
down on the green meadow, and it had rolled near
enough to the water to see its own reflection. Then
the same somebody had carved exquisite designs all
over the pearl, and finally hollowed it out and turned
it into a king's house.

As usual, we came to it across a bridge, not span-
ning the Loire this time, but a branch of the river
Indre; and it's in the Indre that the pearly Chateau
bathes its pearly feet. Almost I wished that I hadn't
gone inside the pearl. Not that the inside was
worthless; there was a mantel or two, and a great
show staircase, with a carved, vaulted roof; but it

The Lightning Conductor 117

was an anti-climax after the outside and after Lan-
geais. When we came out from "viewing the in-
terior," as the guide-books say, I walked all round
the Chateau again, looking up at the carved chimneys
and the sculptured windows, the charming turrets,
and the sloping roof of blue grey slate; all so light
and elegant, seeming to say, "Come and live here.
You will be happy." Oh, they have some lovely
things in Europe, that we can never have in our new
country! We've a good excuse for wanting to come
over here. But it's so good to feel that the things
are for us, and for everybody — not just for England,
or France, or Italy, as the case may be.

To-morrow we are going to try and see three
chateaux — Usse, and Luynes, and Chinon. We'll
come back to Tours and our dear Hotel de 1'Univers;
but the day after — good-bye to both, and how-do-
you-do Loches ! I'll leave this open, and put in a
postscript. I haven't given you a real, characteristic
postscript for a long time.

Evening; and LOCHES.

"Here I am again!" as Jack-in-the-Box says,
And we've done all the things I said we were going
to. But I'm too full of Loches and too excited about
Loches to tell you anything of yesterday's three
castles, except to fling them an adjective or two, and
pass on. Let me see, what adjective, since I've con-
fined myself to one, shall I give Usse7 "Splendid,"
I think. " Interesting " is all I can afford for Luynes,
though it deserves a lot more, if only for its history.
And well — "magnificent" must do for Chinon. Per-

n8 The Lightning Conductor

haps it has the most beautiful view of afl. But
Loches — Loches ! I had forgotten its existence till
I dug it up for myself in Quentin Dumuard, and the
guide-books, to which Aunt Mary is so faithful, don't
do it any sort of justice. They don't tell you to go
to see it, whatever else you must make up your mind
to miss. Why, Aunt M.'s particular pet devoted
almost as much space to the queer little rock village
of Rochecorbon, whose lighted windows glared at
us like cat's eyes away high up above the road, one
dark evening (when we'd been belated after an excur-
sion) getting back to Tours.

Luckily the Lightning Conductor appreciated
Loches at its true value, and told me it was well
worth making a short detour — as we must — to see.
We had to go out of our way as far as a place called
Cormery, but that was nothing, and yesterday mom-
ing early we started. It was the first sparkling blue-
and-gold day we have had for a while; it seemed as
if it must have come across to us from Provence, as
a sample, to show what we might expect if we hurried
on there. The air was like champagne — or Vouvray
— and we spun along at our very best on the smooth,
wide Route Nationale, our faces turned towards
Provence as a graceful compliment for the gift of the
weather.

We have a neat little trick of getting to places just
in time for lunch, and we managed it at Loches, as
usual. We'd hardly driven into the town before
I fell in love with its quaintness; but I didn't fall
in love with the hotel until I'd been surprised with
a perfectly delicious dejeuner. Then I let myself go ;

The Lightning Conductor 119

and when I'd seen how pretty the old-fashioned bed-
rooms were, I begged to stay all night instead of
going on. Brown seems to regard my requests as if
they were those of royalty — commands; and he re-
arranged our programme accordingly. I'm writing
in a green -and-pink damask bedroom now, but when
I shut my eyes I can see the castle and the dungeons
and — Madame C6sar. Yes, I think I can find my
way back for your benefit, and return on our own
tracks.

First, like a promising preface to the ruined strong-
hold of the terrible Louis, v/e went through a massive
gateway, flanked with towers, and climbed up a
winding street of ancient, but not decrepit houses,
to come cut at last upon a plateau with the gigantic
walls of the castle on our left. When I remembered
•who caused those outworks and walls to be put up,
so high and grim and strong, and why, I felt a little
"creep" run up my spine at sight of the enormous
mass of stonework. "Who enters here leaves hope
behind" might have been written over the gateway
in the dreadful days when Loches was in its wicked
prime. Those walls are colossal, like perpendicular
cliffs. At a door in one of them we tinkled a bell,
and presently, with loud unlocking of double doors,
quite a pretty young girl appeared and invited us in.
She was the daughter of the gardien, she told us. It
was almost a shock to see something so fresh and
young living in such a forbidding, torture-haunted
den as Louis' Chateau of Loches. She was like one
of the little bright-coloured winter blossoms springing
out from a cranny of the grey walls. When she had

I2O The Lightning Conductor

lighted rather a smelly lantern, we prepared to follow
into the " fastnesses " of the castle. If ever that good
old double-dyed word could be appropriate, it is to
Loches. I never thoroughly realised before the awful
might of kings in feudal and mediaeval days. To
think that Louis XL had the power to build such
a place, and to hustle his enemies away for ever
out of the sunshine, behind those tremendous walls,
and bury them in the yard-square cells hollowed in
the thickness of the stone! I used to wish I'd lived
in those stirring times, but I changed my mind to-day
— temporarily.

In the middle of the fortress is an enormous
square, white keep, so heavy, solid, and imposing
that it seems more like the slow work of Nature than
of man. Down steep, winding steps in a tower, we
followed our guide into the dungeons where that
unspeakable Louis shut up the people he was afraid
to leave in the world. Waving her lantern in the
dusk, the girl showed us where the wretched pris-
oners had tried to keep themselves from madness
by painting on the roof and walls. In one cell a
bishop had cut into the solid wall a little altar, just
where a slanting ray of sunshine stole through a
grating and occasionally laid a small patch of light
for a few minutes, only to snatch it away again.
Several of the cells were just black holes scooped
out of the rock, and there it seemed to have been
Louis' delight to put some of the most important
prisoners — men who had lived like princes, and had
power over life and death in their own countries.

Oh, do you remember wily Cardinal Balue? I've

The Lightning Conductor 121

been refreshing my memory of him in Quentin
Durward, hating him dreadfully; but I did have
a spasm of pity when I saw the big, well-like place
where he was suspended for so many years, like an
imprisoned canary, in a wooden cage, because he
betrayed Louis' secrets to the Duke of Burgundy.
Henry James says, in a fascinating Tauchnitz vol-
ume I bought in Tours (A Little Tour in France), that
Cardinal Balue "survived much longer than might
have been expected this extraordinary mixture of
seclusion and exposure." Isn't that just the cun-
ningest way of expressing it?

Last of all we went up to the top of a high tower
in the midst of the Chateau, and there, as if we'd
been on the mast-head of a ship, we had a bird's-eye
view of the pretty white town, with the Indre mur-
muring by in sedgy meadows outside. There were
some wonderful old cuttings in the stone, made by
the soldiers who acted as sentinels and prisoners'
guards ; and Aunt Mary Kodaked me as I sat study-
ing them. We could spy, across the plateau of the
castle, the tomb of Agnes Sorel, and decided to go to
it; but we left the poor girl till so late, finally, that
we could only see her glimmering white in effigy of
marble, with a sweetly resigned face, modest, folded
hands, and a dear little soft sitting-down lamb to
rest her pretty feet on. She had, besides, two very
pretty young angels to watch over her and wake her
up when it should be time.

I'm sure it would have taken at least three such
angels to wake me up, until I had "slept out," after
our long afternoon in the castle, and later in the town.

12 * The Lightning Conductor

I went to bed early and slept ten hours. We hadn't
to start immediately, as our drive for the day wasn't
long, so I proposed to Aunt Mary that we should
breakfast in our rooms and then go out for a morning
walk. The breakfast idea appealed to her; not so
the walk, and accordingly I had to go alone. I had
no plan except perhaps to buy a souvenir or two;
but in the crooked street leading up to the castle I
met Brown. He was reading a notice on the great
gateway, directing strangers to some excavations
lately made. He took off his cap at sight of me,
and I asked him if he thought the excavations would
be worth seeing. He had heard that they were, and
I said that I should be glad if he would show me
how to go to the place. I didn't like wandering
about by myself. Everything is so horrid that one
does by oneself in a strange country, and then if
Brown isn't useful in one way he always proves to be
in another. So he obeyed, of course, walking not
too close, as if to let me see that he recognised the
distance between us. I've often noticed him do that
if we have to go anywhere together on foot, and I
think it's rather nice of him, don't you? Just a little
pathetic too, maybe. Anyhow, it seems that way to
me, for he really ought to have been a gentleman.
It's such a waste of good material, the Lord using
him up for a chauffeur when any common stuff would
have done for that.

Well, we went on a short distance until we saw a
tiny cottage in a wild-looking garden at the foot of
the huge fortress walls. We rang a gate-bell, when
another notice told us we'd got to the right place*

The Lightning Conductor 123

and a little, smiling woman came out to welcome us.
"Oh, yes!" said she volubly. She would show us
the excavations, and we would find them as interest-
ing as anything we could see in Loches. Already it
was easy to see that in her, at least, we had found
something interesting. She had the nicest, brightest
old face, and she poured out upon us a kind of benign
dew of conversation. She introduced herself as
Madame Cesar; always talking and explaining, she
lighted a candle, led us to the mouth of an egg-
shaped subterranean path, and bowed us down. She
went, too, down the steep steps, telling how this
passage and many ramifications of it had been dis-
covered only recently, most of the excavations having
been the work of her husband. It was supposed that
an underground gallery led a long way from Loches
to some distant spot, so that people could come and
go to the castle unseen, and so that the fortress could
secretly receive provisions if it were besieged. All
sorts of things had been found in the passages —
rosaries, and old, old books, and coins, and queer
playing-cards; and some of the best of the relics
she had in her own cottage. We stopped to see
them afterwards, and she reeled forth yards of history
in the most fascinating and vivacious manner, accom-
panied by dramatic gestures, almost worthy of Sara
Bernhardt. I suppose she must have been down in
the excavations oftener than she could remember, but
you would have thought it was perfectly new to her,
and she was seeing it for the first time. She gave us
a rose each to remember her by, and oh! — wasn't it
comic, or tragic ? which you will — she quite rnisunder-

124 The Lightning Conductor

stood things, and suggested that 7 should put Brown's
rose in his leathery buttonhole. He and I both
pretended not to hear, but I felt embarrassed for
a minute. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have missed
Madame Ce'sar and her excavations for a good deal.

There, dejeuner is ready, and you'll be glad, maybe,
dear, faraway Dad, because it will spare you further
descriptions. After dtjeuner we shall proceed to be
lightning-conducted again, and I shall duly collect a
few more adventures to recount. Good-bye, dear.
How I wish you were with me instead of Aunt Mary I
Your everlasting

MOLLY,

JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

BIARRITZ, December n.

My dear Montie,

I have let you rest a good long time without
a letter (not that I've been taking a rest myself), and
now I should think you are opening your eyes with
astonishment at the picture on my paper of a hotel
at beautiful, blowy Biarritz. Thereby hangs a tale
of adventure and misadventure.

No doubt my fair employer believes me at this
moment to be consorting with couriers in the ser-
vants hall (if there be one) of her hotel. But, as
usual, I know a trick worth two of that; and having
washed his hands of Brovrn for the time being, your
friend Jack sits smoking his pipe and writing to you
in what is known as the "monkey-house" of this
hotel. As you don't know Biarritz, you'll think that
in exchanging all the comforts of a servants' hall for
a monkey-house I am not doing myself as well as
I might. But there are monkey-houses and monkey-
houses. This one is a delightful glass room built
on to the front of the hotel, facing a garden and
tennis courts, commanding a glorious view of the
sea and also of every creature, human and inhuman,
who goes by. One has tea in the monkey-house;

126 The Lightning Conductor

one writes letters, reads novels, smokes or gossips,
according to sex and inclination; one can also be
seen at one's private avocations by the madding
crowd outside the glass house, hence the name.

The air is luminous with sunshine and pungent
with ozone. Great green rollers are marching in, to
break in thunder on the beach, and fling rainbow
•spouts of spray over tumbled brown rocks. In the
-distance the sea has all the colours of a peacock's
tail; the world is at its best, and I ought to be
rejoicing in its hospitality; but I'm not. The fact
is, I'm upset in my mind. I'm over head and ears
in love, and as there's no hope of scrambling out
again (I'm hanged if I would, even if I could) or of
getting my feet on solid ground, mere beauty of
landscape and seascape appear slightly irrelevant.

I wouldn't bother you with my difficulties, which,
I admit, are mostly my own fault, and serve me
right for beginning wrong, but you asked in your
letter if you could help me in any way; and it does
help to let off steam. You are my safety-valve, old
man.

You will have had my hasty line from Angouleme
(birthplace of witch-stories and of Miss Randolph's
beloved Francis the First) telling you how we got rid
of Eyelashes. I don't think we shall ever encounter
that beautiful young vision again, and I sincerely
hope that we shall be spared others of his kind, but
one never knows what will happen with an American
girl at the helm. I told you also of our doings
among the chateaux. Altogether, that was an
idyllic time; and still, though I have been grumbling

The Lightning Conductor 127

to you just now, when I can shut my eyes to to-mor-
row, I haven't much fault to find with Fate. You
remember that weird story of Hawthorne's, about the-
man who walked out of his own house one morning,
took lodgings in a neighbouring street, disguised
himself, and watched for years the agony of his wife,
who gave him up for dead? At last the desire for
home came over him again; he knocked at his own
door and went in ; there the story ends.

My position is like that of Hawthorne's hero,,
without the tragedy. When shall I return to my
own home? I cannot tell. I have stepped out of
my own sphere into another, and sometimes I have
an odd sense of detachment, as if I were floating
in a void. It is only when I am writing to you or
when I get letters from the world I have left that I
feel the link which unites me with the past. Since
I left Paris I have had only four letters from my
world, which have fallen into Brown's world like-
strange reminders of another existence. I have had
your own welcome words, and a letter from my
mother at Cannes (I gave her my address at Poitiers }
telling me of the arrival there of Jabez Barrow with
his "one fair daughter, " and urging me to haste. As.
if I should rush from the society of the Goddess in
the car to the opulent charms (in both senses) of
Miss Barrow! It appears that Jabez the Rich does,
not care for Cannes, but sighs for Italy, and that
my mother has promised to "personally conduct"
them to Rome. She wants me to reach Cannes
before they leave, or if that's impossible, to abandon
my car and follow by rail to Rome, lest I "miss this

128 "The Lightning Conductor

great chance." I am not surprised at this move.
My dear mother, when the travelling fit is upon her,
is nothing if not erratic. She is here to-day, and,
having seen the charms of another place advertised
on a poster, is gone to-morrow.

On getting this letter a happy inspiration came
into my mind. It had been the more or less vague
intention of the Goddess, after inspecting the castles
of the Loire, to steer for Lyons, arriving at Nice
by way of Grenoble. I offered the wily suggestion,
however, that it would make a more varied and less
"obvious" tour if we went down by Bordeaux and
Biarritz, snatched a glimpse of Spain, travelled along
the foot of the Pyrenees to Marseilles, and so reach
the Riviera by this long detour. The word " obvious "
is a black beast to an American girl, who will be
original or nothing; therefore my suggestion is in
the way of being carried out. I've written to my
mother that I can't reach Cannes before she herself
leaves for Rome; thus I gain time. Still, the day
of disclosure must come at last, and the longer it's
put off the less I like to think about it.

The Goddess (alias Miss Randolph) is staying with
her aunt at the " Angleterre." I have slunk off here,
having arranged matters with the hall porter at the
other place, who will, if my mistress wants me, send
a messenger post-haste. Meanwhile the car reposes
in a garage, where it is kept clean and in running
order without any trouble to me. As I have grad-
ually drifted into the position of Miss Randolph's
courier as well as her chauffeur, I can plan these
things as I like, for she never glances at her bills,

The Lightning Conductor 129

I settle, giving an account every few days.
Do you recall your own story of the conscientious
Yankee from the country who failed in his efforts
to eat straight through the menu at a Paris hotel
dinner, and appealed to the waiter to know whether
he might now "skip from thar to thar"? Well,
I would skip on my menu from Loches to Biarritz;
but you were to have been my companion on this
trip, and you cry for details.

From Loches we took a cross-country route which
brought us out in the main road from Tours to
Bordeaux at Dange. There isn't much to say about
that run, except that it was through agreeable, un-
dulating country with wide horizons, like a thousand
other undulations and horizons in France. At La
Haye-Descartes we struck a pretty picture when
crossing a bridge over the River Creuse. The setting
sun had performed the miracle of turning the water
into wine, and, chattering and laughing as if that
wine had gone to their pretty heads, a company of
girls and young women, all on their knees, cheerfully
did their washing in the stream. It was one of those
homely scenes that one is constantly coming across
in this "pleasant land of France" to leave a picture
in one's mind. Miss Randolph would have me stop
the car on the bridge to watch it.

A queer thing about France, by the way. You
and I have both been entertained right royally in
jolly old chateaux by delightful French people of our
own class. We know that life in such country houses
can be as charming as it is in England ; yet if one had
never seen it from the inside, one would fancy in

The Lightning Conductor

travelling that nothing of the sort existed. Roughly,
•one might sum the difference up in a phrase by
•saying that France presents a peasant's landscape,
England a landlord's. In England you see twenty
good country houses for every one you pass in France
— excepting only the district of the Loire; and
outdoor life as we know it, on the road and on the
river, doesn't seem to exist over here. Somehow
I was never so much struck with this contrast before,
though I know this country almost as well as I know
my hat. Think of the English roads and lanes, of
the pretty girls and decent men one meets on horse-
back or in smart dogcarts, the dowagers in victorias,
the crowds of cyclists, the occasional fine motor-car,
knickerbockered men walking for the pleasure of
•exercise! Here, though one knows there are more
motors than at home, one rarely conies across them
out of towns; and as for ladies and gentlemen, or,
indeed, any sort of people out solely for enjoyment,
they're as rare as black opals. I look in vain for
pretty field paths and rural lanes, where workmen
and their sweethearts wander when the day is done.
I suppose they prefer to do their love-making indoors
•or in front of a cafe*, or perhaps they sandwich it in
with their long hours of work, and that is the reason
why the whole of France seems so much more cul-
tivated than country England — the reason why
every acre is turned to account, not a square yard
•of earth left untilled. It's only the magnificent roads
which aren't enough appreciated, apparently, by the
"'nobility and gentry," as the tradesmen's circulars
have it. And what roads tho Routes Nationales are

The Lightning Conductor i3r

—born for motor-cars ! — varying a little from depart-
ment to department, but equally good almost every-
where. You come to a stone marking the boundary
of a department, for instance, and crossing an
imaginary line, find yourself on a different kind ,o|r
surface, each department being allowed to make it"s
road after the manner which pleases it best — provided
only it makes it well.

The Route Nationale from Paris to Bayonne, along-
part of which we've lately travelled, is good nearly-
all the way. From Dange to Poitiers is a splendid
bit, and up to Poitiers one climbs a considerable hill.
It's a cheerful town, with a fine cathedral, and lively
streets full of red-legged soldiers, rather weedy and
shambling fellows, like most French conscripts. Be-
yond Poitiers the road is one long, exhilarating switch-
back— you rush down one hill, climb another, swoop-
again into a hollow, and so on, the road unrolling
itself like a great white tape. You try to drive
faster than the tape unrolls, but somehow you can
never beat it.

That we were getting into the south was shown by
the fact that the road was bordered by endless rows
of walnut trees. Under a tumbled sky, and with an
occasional spatter of rain, we passed that day through
avast stretch of rolling, cultivated land, with obscure
villages at long intervals. In a little town called
Couhe'-Verac we lunched rather late. The regular
dejeuner was over, as it was nearly three in the after-
noon; but in ten minutes after we got into the house
we sat down to this luncheon: boiled eggs, roast
veal, bceuf d la mode, purte of potatoes, pheasant, a.

132 The Lightning Conductor

delicious $&tt, grapes, peaches, pears, sweet biscuits,
cream cheese, red and white wine, and bread ad
libitum; all for two francs fifty per head. Think of
it! This was a homely village inn, with no pre-
tensions. What would have happened if we had
turned up unexpectedly at such a house in England?
We should have been offered cold beef and pickles,
with the alternative of ham and eggs, or possibly
"chop or steak, sir; take twenty minutes." Truly in
cooking we are barbarians. The French dine ; we feed.
The landlord was a man of character. He had
delightful manners, and though he was young his
hair was greyish, and cut low and straight across
a broad forehead. Through gold-rimmed glasses
gleamed the blue eyes of an enthusiast. He went
with me to look at the car, and explained that he
was an inventor — that he had designed a new system
of marine propulsion more powerful than the screw.
It followed the action of a man in swimming, "regular
in irregularity," and standing on his toes, he flung out
his arms, and beat them rhythmically in the air to
illustrate his theory. It was hard, he confided in me,
to have to keep an inn in a small town, when he
ought to be in Paris, among engineers, perfecting his
invention. Did I, by any chance, know of a capital-
ist who would back him? I sympathised and re-
gretted; but who knows if he has not got hold of an
idea? At Blois they have a statue of Denis Papin,
who, the French say, invented the steam engine.
Perhaps, years hence, if my grandchildren pass
through Couhe"-Verac, they may see a statue to the
blue-eyed landlord of its little inn.

The Lightning Conductor 133

Beyond Couhe'-Verac we had our first dog acci-
dent. Dogs, you know, are as great a nuisance to
automobiles as they are to cycles, and they charge at
one's car with such vehemence that their impetus
almost carries them under the wheels. Sometimes
they show their strength by galloping alongside the
car for a couple of hundred yards, barking so furiously
the while that their bodies are contorted by the
violence of the effort. I was driving at a moderate
pace (something under thirty miles an hour) when a
beautiful collie which had been standing by the road-
side walked quietly out and planted himself with his
back to me in front of the car. The fact was that
he saw his master coming along the road, and had
gone forward to greet him. The whole thing hap-
pened in an instant, so that I had no time to stop.
I think the dog must have been deaf not to hear the
noise of the car. I shouted, but he took no notice.
To swerve violently to one side was to risk upsetting
the car; besides, there was no room to do this as
another vehicle happened to be passing. If there
had been only the car to sacrifice, I would have
sacrificed it to save that collie; but I couldn't sacri-
fice Miss Randolph. There was nothing for it but
to drive over the dog. With a sickening wrench of
the heart, I saw the nice beast disappear under the
front of the car. Instantly slowing down, I looked
behind me expecting to see a mangled corpse. But
there was the dog rolling over and over on the road.
Clearly some under part of the car had struck him
and sent him spinning. The noise, the unexpected
blow, the fierce, hot blast of the poisonous exhaust

134 The Lightning Conductor

pouring into his face, must have made the poor
fellow think that he had struck a travelling earth-
quake. But happily he was unhurt. As I looked
he got on to his feet, and with his tail between his
legs, ran to his master for consolation. Our last
glimpse showed us that comedy had followed tragedy,
for the master was beating the dog with a cane for
getting in our way. I was afraid Miss Randolph
would scream or faint, but she did neither, only
turned white as marble, and never looked prettier in
her life. Aunt Mary yelled, of course, but more in
fear for ourselves than for the collie, I think. She
says she would like dogs better "if their bark could
be extracted."

Angouleme is, like Poitiers, a town set upon a hill,
a quaint old town, worth seeing, but we were eager
now to get to the true South, and merely gave our-
selves time to lunch (the waiter producing, with a
flourish, enticing but indigestible paUs de perdrix aux
truffes) and to drive slowly along some of the famous
terraced boulevards that form the distinction and the
charm of Angouleme. Certainly the place stands
romantically on its high and lonely hill, almost sur-
rounded by the clear waters of the Charante. At
AngoulSme we saw, I may say, the first professional
beggars we had met on the tour. A warm sun seems
to breed beggars as it breeds mosquitoes, or is it that
Southern peoples have less self-respect than the
Northern?

A drawback to automobilism in France is the fact
that many of the great direct main roads are pavt.
I believe that this is a remnant of the old days of

The Lightning Conductor 135

road-making, when these heavy cobbles formed the
one surface that would stand artillery. For ordinary
traffic the pav6 roads are impossible, and their exist-
ence must be a drawback to trade and intercourse.
In France they sell special bicycling maps showing
with dotted lines all thepavt roads, and these I have
carefully studied, as it is worth making any detour to
avoid the awful jolting of the pavt. But somehow,
bewteen AngoulSme and Bordeaux, I took a wrong
turning, and suddenly on ahead of us the good road
ceased abruptly as if a straight line had been ruled
across it, and the detestable pav6 began.

"Oh, let's try it as an experience," commanded my
Goddess. " I hate going back, and perhaps it doesn't
last long." I trusted to this hope, for I knew that in
many places the pav& is being dug up, here and there
only short stretches of it being left, and I gingerly
drove the Napier on to the execrable surface of
uneven stones. We rattled and tossed, and steering
became a matter of difficulty. The irritating thing
was that each side of this detestable road were wide
belts of inviting grass, but with malignant ingenuity
these are cut up at frequent intervals by oblique
drainage gutters, which forbid the passage of any-
thing wider than a bicycle. For bicycles there are
indeed special tracks kept in order by the Touring
Club de France, but all four-wheeled vehicles must
jolt and bump along the rough, uneven stones. By
the time we reached the first cross-road Aunt Mary
begged for mercy, and I was glad to have the order
to get off the pav6 at any cost. Soundly as the
Napier is built, it was a tremendous and unfair strain

136 The Lightning Conductor

upon springs and tyres, and all the while I was
dreading that something would go. Threading our
way through endless vineyards by a labyrinth of
by-ways, we ran through Barbezieux and Libourne,
and as day was falling crossed the noble bridge over
the Garonne into bustling Bordeaux.

Next day we took a run on the car along the Quai
des Chartrons and through some of the chief streets
and squares of Bordeaux, just to get a glimpse of the
handsome town, at which Miss Randolph turned up
her pretty nose because it was " new and prosperous " ;
then, guided by a porter from the hotel who went
before us on his bicycle, we threaded the city on our
way out to Arcachon. There was some unavoidable
pav& and many odious tramlines; but at last our
guide left us on the outskirts of the town, and we
sped on to a curious little toy suburb called St.
Martin, studded with neat, one-storied, red-roofed
cottages, like houses in a child's box of bricks, and
all with romantic names, such as Belle Idee, Mon
Repos, Augustine, Mon Cceur, and so on. The whole
place seemed like an assemblage of dove cotes spe-
cially planned for honeymoon couples, and gave
the oddest effect of unreality. Then we passed into
the green twilight of the great pine forest which
extends all the way to the sea.

A romantically beautiful road lay before us. For
more than thirty miles it runs straight and smooth
through high aromatic pines, springing from a carpet
of bracken. Miss Randolph, I must tell you, has
become an expert driver, and at sight of the long,
straight road said she would take the wheel. So I

The Lightning Conductor 137

stopped a moment, and we changed places. She put
the car at its highest speed, and we flew along the
infinite perspective of the never-ending avenue. This
vast pine forest is a desert, and we passed only
through small and scattered villages. That flight
through the pines forest of the Landes will always
be to me an ineffaceable memory. None of us
spoke; two of us felt, I think, that we were close to
Nature's heart. The heady, balsamic odour of the
pines exhilarated us, and the wind, playing melan-
choly music on the Eolian harps of their branches,
seemed like a deep accompaniment to the humming
throb of the tireless motor. As often as I dared I
stole a look sideways at Miss Randolph's profile.
She sat erect, her little gauntletted hands resting
light as thistledown upon the wheel, but her fingers
and her wrist nervous and alert as a jockey riding a
thoroughbred, her eyes intent on the long, straight
road before her, and a look almost of rapture upon
her face.

We had raced silently through the forest for nearly
an hour, when, mingling with the balsam of the pines
there came a pungent odour of ozone floating from
open blue spaces beyond the sombre girdle of the
pines. Miss Randolph threw at me a questioning
glance. "It must be the sea," I answered, and in a
few moments more, after passing through the ancient
town of La Teste, we came out upon the edge of a
vast lagoon, semicircular, the distant shores almost
lost in an indistinct blue haze. "The Bassin d'Arca-
chon. I said" Still, no town was visible, only the
great expanse of landlocked sea, its shore dotted

138 The Lightning Conductor

with the brown wooden cabins of the oyster fishers.
It seemed like coming to the end of the world.

Slowing down a little, we followed a raised cause-
way that skirted the edge of the Bassin, and pres-
ently entered upon a long, straight street — one of
the oddest streets you have ever seen, one whole
side of it (that next the sea) being composed of
fantastic bungalows and pleasure-houses of all
imaginable styles, each set in its own garden, and
the whole town drowned in an ocean of pines. At
the outskirts I took the helm again, for Miss Ran-
dolph scarcely trusts her skill in traffic. Not that
there was enough to be alarming in Arcachon, for
the place seemed under a spell of silence. We drove
through the long main street, past an imposing
white chateau and a good many quite charming
houses, until we came to a hotel which the Goddess
fancied, and turned into a garden. I'd never been
to Arcachon before, and supposed from the guide-
books that this was the place for "my ladies" (as the
couriers say) to stop. But the landlady came out,
and welcoming us with one breath, recommended
us with the next to their winter house in the forest.
This place, looking over the sea, was for summer;
the other was now more agreeably sheltered.

The "house in the forest" sounded well in the ears
of the Goddess, so we drove off to find it, according
to the directions of Madame Feras. The Napier
spun us up a steep, winding road into a charming
garden surrounding an Alhambra sort of place, which
Aunt Mary thought "real gay," being bitterly dis-
appointed to find it was not our hotel, but Arcachon's

The Lightning Conductor 139

casino. The garden proved to be, however, prac-
tically the beginning of the Ville d'Hiver, a quaint
and delightful collection of villas which look as if
they had been scattered like ornate seeds among the
crowding pine of the Landes. Of these seeds the
"Continental" is the most imposing, and, by-the-
way, this climate would suit you, I should think; it's
an extraordinary combination of pine and sea air,
which would make a doctor's fortune as a tonic, if he
could cork it up in bottles.

As both hotels are run by the same management,
I feared gossip if I went down to the "Grand" and
did the Doctor Jekyll act; so I cautiously remained
Mr. Hyde, alias Brown, and was a serf among other
serfs. After dining in the society of maids and valets
(whose manners and conversation would have given
me ripping "copy" if I were a journalist) I stole
out to cleanse my mind with a draught of pure air
and a look at the sky. A cat may look at a king,
and a chauffeur may walk on a terrace built for his
betters, especially if the betters elect to shut them-
selves up in stuffy drawing-rooms, with every window
anxiously closed. I availed myself of this privilege,
for the hotel has a fine terrace. As it was apparently
empty, I sauntered along with my nose in the air
and my eyes on the stars, letting my footsteps take
care of themselves. Suddenly there was a startled
"Oh!" in a familiar voice, and I became aware that
I had collided with the Goddess, who had also been
thinking of the stars and not of her feet — which,
by-the-by, 7 very often think of, as they are the
prettiest I ever saw.

140 The Lightning Conductor

I instantly clapped my pipe in my pocket, where
it revenged itself on me for neglecting to put it out
by burning a hole through to my skin. I apologised,
and would have taken my humble chauffeury self
away, but my mistress detained me. "What is that
wonderful, faraway sound, Brown?" she asked in the
delicious way she has of expecting me to know every-
thing, as if I were an encyclopaedia and she'd only
to turn over my leaves to come to a new fact.

I stopped breathing to listen; I'd do it perma-
nently to please her. And there was a sound —
a wonderful sound. If I hadn't been thinking about
her and the stars, I should have been conscious of
it before. Out of the night-silence the sound seemed
to grow, and yet be a part of the silence, or rather,
to intensify the near silence by its distant booming,
deep and ominous, like the far-off roaring of angry
lions never pacified. At first I thought it must be
a rush of wind surging through the mighty pine
forest; but not a dark branch moved against the
spangled embroidery of stars, though the air seemed
faintly to vibrate with the continuous, solemn note.
Suddenly the meaning of the sound came to me; it
was the majestic music of the Atlantic surf beating
on the bar ten miles away. But it was too divine
standing there in the night with Her in silence. For
a moment I had not the heart to speak and tell
her of my discovery. A faint light came to us from
the stars and from the curtained windows of the
hotel. I could just see her face and her lovely great
eyes looking up questioningly in absolute confidence
at me. Jove, what wouldn't I have given just then

The Lightning Conductor 141

to be Jack Winston and not Brown! If I had been,
that girl wouldn't have got back into the house with-
out being proposed to, and having another "scalp"
to count, as they say American beauties do. Not
that I think she'd be that kind. I don't know how
long I shouldn't have tried to make the magic of the
moment last, if Aunt Mary hadn't bounced out of
the hotel (done up in a shawl, like a large parcel)
to call " Molly! Molly, it's time you came in! "

Molly didn't move, but Aunt Mary descended the
steps, relentless as fate; so I made the most of my
information, and added a short disquisition on Arca-
chon oysters and oyster fishing, for the sake of
retaining the Goddess's society. Unfortunately,
however, I happened to remark that the oyster
women wore trousers exactly like the men, and this
so disgusted Miss Kedison that she incontinently
dragged her niece from the contamination of the
chauffeur's presence.

Next day was Sunday. Miss Randolph went to
the English church, which is the prettiest I've ever
seen in France, and afterwards, escorted by the chap-
lain with whom she'd made friends, went forth to see
the sights, while I inquired as to how we might
best proceed upon our way. While Miss Randolph
and Miss Kedison read their prayer-books, I studied
that useful volume, Les Routes de France, and was
duly warned against the impracticable roads of the
Landes. The one thing to do, according to the
oracle, was to return to Bordeaux and make a long
detour to Bayonne by Mont de Marsan. I knew
Miss Randolph would dislike this plan, for she hates

142 The Lightning Conductor

going back, and so do I. If I had been alone, or
with you, I would have chanced it without a
moment's hesitation, making straight for Bayonne
by way of the forbidden Landes, with all its pitfalls.
But I funked the idea of perhaps getting Her into
a mess — and hearing Aunt Mary say "I told you
so," as she invariably does when there's any trouble.

To my joy, however, plucky Parson Radcliff had
actually advanced the idea of the Landes, during
their excursion, and the Goddess sent for me on
Sunday evening, full of enthusiasm. Far be it from
me to dampen the ardour of youth; and early on
Monday morning we started to follow the route
La Teste, Sanguinet, Parentis, Yehoux, Liposthey,
which names reminded Miss Randolph of Gulliver's
Travels.

She and I were in fine spirits, expecting the unex-
pected, and bracing ourselves to encounter diffi-
culties. There was mystery in the very thought
of the Landes — that strange waste of forest and
sand so little known outside its own people. I felt
it, and so did Miss Randolph, I knew. How I knew
I couldn't explain to you; but some electric current
usually communicates her mood to me, and I should
almost believe from various signs that it was so with
her in regard to me, if I weren't a mere chauffeur in
the lady's pay.

For some distance the going was good, but we
were only reading the preface to the true Landes as
yet ; and when we reached the boundary post between
the department of the Gironde and the real Landes,
there was one of those sudden, complete changes

"DARK-FACED PEASANTS PERCHED ON STILTS.'

The Lightning Conductor 143.

I've mentioned in the quality of the road. To.
drive into this dim, pine-clad region was like driv-
ing back into the years a century or two. A motor-
car was an anachronism, and if we came to grief
our blood was upon our own heads. The way be-
came grass-grown and rutty, and I was obliged to-
drive slowly. Deeper and deeper we penetrated
into the forest, and deeper and deeper also we
sank into the soft earth. Aunt Mary groaned and
prophesied disaster as we crawled along in ruts up-
to our axles; but I think Miss Randolph and I
would have perished sooner than retreat. I trusted
in the Napier and she trusted in me. In one place
the road had been mended with a covering of loose-
rocks rather than stones; we panted and crunched
our way over them, enormously to the astonishment
of the road-menders and one or two dark-faced
peasants, perched like cranes on the old-fashioned
stilts not yet utterly abandoned as a means of
navigating this sea of sand and pines. Still, on we
went, the engine labouring a little, like an over-
worked heart; but it was a loyal heart, and the tyres,
were trumps.

Miss Randolph said that if she were a tyre and
condemned to such hard labour, she would burst out
of sheer spite. I think Miss Kedison nearly did se-
as it was; but as for us (I suppose you can't con-
ceive the satisfaction to a poor chauffeur of bracket-
ing his lady and himself familiarly as "us"), we were
intoxicated by the heavy balsam of the turpentine,
for which every tree we passed was being sliced. On
each a great flake of the trunk had been struck off

144 The Lightning Conductor

with an axe, and a small earthen cup affixed to catch
the resin, which is the heart's blood of the wounded
tree. There was something Dante-esque in the effect
of these bleeding wounds, among old, scarcely healed
scars ; and that effect was intensified by the shadowy
gloom of the dense forest, and the never-ceasing
sound of the wind among the high, dark branches,
like the beating of surf upon an unseen shore.

At last, when the feeling was strong upon us that
the ocean of pines had engulphed us, like Pharaoh's
chariot in the Red Sea, we came upon a rambling
village, called Parentis. As if to announce the
arrival of the first motor car ever seen in the dim,
forgotten Landes, the off front tire began to hiss.
"I told you so!" said Aunt Mary. My eyes and
Miss Randolph's met, and we both burst out laughing.
It was a great liberty in me, and though I couldn't
have helped it to save my neck, and became preter-
naturally solemn afterwards as a penance, I don't
believe that the lady I should like to have for an
aunt-in-law will ever forgive me. She ought, how-
ever, as this was our first accident with the Napier,
while with poor little Miss Randolph's late esteemed
Dragon, one breakfasted, lunched, dined, and supped
on horrors. Besides, the Dragon invariably schemed
to do its worst, far from human aid, while my long-
suffering Napier had brought us to the very court-
yard of the village inn before (as Miss Randolph
expressed it) "sitting down to rest."
v Inside this convenient courtyard I set about doing
the repairs, jacking up the car, taking off the tyre,
patching it, and getting it on again in twenty minutes;

The Lightning Conductor 145

not bad for an amateur mecanicien. All the people
of the inn and many of the villagers gathered round
to see the great sight, and Aunt Mary consoled her-
self by showing off her somewhat eccentric French
to the landlady and her family.

There were three generations in this group, I took
time to notice. A bowed and wrinkled old dame;
her daughter, a strong, sad-faced woman in black;
and a golden-haired granddaughter, about the pret-
tiest creature I ever saw — bar one. And it was
charming to see my Goddess laying herself out to
be nice to the trio. Her personality (which is the
last word in well-groomed, high-strung, vivacious
American girlhood) contrasted strikingly with these
countrywomen, who had perhaps never been out-
side their own forest. I couldn't hear what she was
saying, but she has the most extraordinary way of
always hitting on the right thing to please and
interest people, without departing from truth or
descending to flattery. All three gazed at her with
delight and admiration, the little beauty of the
Landes with deepening colour and wistful eyes.
No Frenchwoman, no Englishwoman, no woman
save an American of the best type, could have ex-
actly that manner, which is indescribable to one
who doesn't know. Strange for a vision like that
to flash into these quiet lives, then flash away, never
to be seen again — only remembered.

It was too early for luncheon, but as we had had
the shelter of the inn I wanted to order something
for "the good of the house." I accordingly asked
for Bordeaux and biscuits, and the pretty rose of a

146 The Lightning Conductor

•granddaughter brought a bottle of — what do you
think? Pontet Canet! It was nectar, and cost —
three francs a bottle !

When we drove away Miss Randolph was reflec-
tive. I would have liked to offer a penny for her
thoughts, but that sort of indulgence is not in the
•sphere of a chauffeur. Presently she broke out, how-
ever. "Did you ever see anything so lovely as that
.girl?" she exclaimed. "She's all white and gold
and rose. Her presence in that sombre place re-
minds me of a shaft of warm, golden light breaking
through the dark canopy of pines. She's like a
maiden in Hans Christian Andersen. And her
name's Angele. Isn't that perfect? It seems cruel
that such a creature, who would make a sensation
in Paris or London or New York, must bloom and
ripen and wither at last, unknown, in that wilderness.
Oh, how I should love to snatch her away? "

"What would you do with her, miss, if you could? "
I ventured to ask, at my humblest — which in Aunt
Mary's eyes, is my best. "Would you take her for
your maidf "

' ' A maidT ' echoed my Goddess scornfully. ' ' Why,
if I meant such a crime as that, I should expect white
"bears to come out of these woods and devour me.
No; I would give her pretty dresses, and arrange a
good marriage for her."

"Is that what young girls in America like, miss,"
I meekly inquired, "to have marriages arranged for
them? "

"No; they hate it, and go away from America to
*how that they hate it — sometimes; but this would

The Lightning Conductor 147

be different," said she. And I wondered if she had
accidentally betrayed anything.

At Liposthey we struck the direct road, with
good surface, from Bordeaux to Bayonne. Thus on
through Labouheyre to Castets, still walled in with
dark, balsamic forest, where we lunched. Just be-
yond, however, we found that we were bidding the
pines farewell, and we were regretting them despite
the beauty of the road — increasing every moment —
when suddenly we had a great surprise. At what
precise point it came I don't quite know, for I was.
snatched up out of the dull " flatland " of facts. Miss
Randolph was driving, and I was glancing interestedly
about, as an intelligent young man of the working-
class may, when away to the left I saw up in the
skies a long chain of blue, serrated mountains look-
ing far too high to belong to this world. I started
on my seat; then Miss Randolph saw what I saw.
"Oh — h!" she breathed, with a responsive sigh of
appreciation. Not an adjective; not a word. I
blessed her for that. Unfortunately, Aunt Mary
seized this moment to awake, and she did not spare
us fireworks. She never does. She is one of those
women who insist upon your knowing that they have
a soul for beauty. But she went to sleep again when
she had used up all her rockets, and left the Goddess
and me alone with the Pyrenees. Much nearer
Bayonne we had another surprise — a notice, in
English, by the roadside: "To the Guards' Ceme-
tery." An odd sign to come across in France, n'est
ce pas, nwn brave? And just as I was calling up the
past, Miss Randolph exclaimed: "I wonder if your

148 The Lightning Conductor

Napier is any relation to that Napier? " which shows
that she has the Peninsular Campaign at her finger-
ends; or else Aunt Mary has been cramming her out
of a guide-book.

It was not late in the afternoon when we crossed
the bridge over the Adour (she says the proverb,
" Don't cross your bridges till you get to them," can't
apply to France, as you're always getting to them),
but already the sky was burnished with sunset; and
if there's anything finer than a grand and ancient
fortified gateway turned to copper by the sun, I
don't know it. I advised Miss Randolph to come
back one day from Biarritz, if we stayed long enough,
to see the exquisite old glass window for which the
Bayonne cathedral is famous; but it was too late
to pause for such details as windows then, so we
flew on along the switchback road over the remaining
five miles to Biarritz. Here, in this agreeable town,
we play about till I have orders from headquarters
to proceed. Our programme is now to go straight
along the Pyrenees to Marseilles, and so to Nice.
Ah, if only I can get Her to go on to Italy! You
had better address me next at the Riviera Palace,
Cimiez. We are to pause at Pau, call at Carcas-
sonne, and honour other places en route to the Riviera,
so there ought to be ample time for this long screed
to reach you and for you to send reproach or praise
to Nice. Tell me about yourself; how you are;
what you read; what girl you love.

Your sincere, but somewhat selfish friend,

JACK WINSTON.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

HOTEL GASSION, PAU,

December 14,

Dear Universal Provider of Love and Cheques,

Thank you a thousand times for both, which
have just been forwarded along the route of this
"wild-goose chase," as you call it. Well, if it is one,
I don't know who the goose is, unless Aunt Mary.
She is rather like that sometimes, poor dear; but we
get on splendidly. Oh, I would get on splendidly
with five Aunt Marys (which Heaven forbid!), for
I'm so happy, Dad! I'm having such a good time —
the time of my life, or it would be if you were in it.

If you ever lose all your money and come a nice,
gentlemanly cropper in the street called Wall, we
might come to Biarritz to live, just you and I. We
would have fun! And we could stop in our pretty
little cheap villa all the year round, for one season
only waits politely till another is out to step in;
it's always gay and fashionable, and yet you needn't
be either unless you like. And the sea and sky
have more gorgeous colour in them than any other
sea and sky, and the air has more ozone; and the
brown rocks that go running a hippopotamus race
out into the beryl-green water are queerer and finer

149

150 The Lightning Conductor

than any other rocks. So you see everything is
superlative, even the hotels, and as for a certain
Confectioner; but he, or rather she, deserves a
capital. There are drives and walks, and curio-
shops where I spent my little all; and there's fox-
hunting, which would be nice if it weren't for the
poor tame fox; and golf, and petits cheveaux at the
casino, where Aunt Mary gambled before she knew
what she was doing, and kept on a long time after
she did; and mysterious Basque persons with an-
cestors and costumes more wonderful than anybody
else's, who dance strange dances in the streets for
money, and play a game called La Pelotte, which
is great sport to watch. And you walk by the sea,
with its real waves, like ours at home, not little
tuppenny-ha'penny ones like those I saw in the
English Channel; and you look across an opal bay
through a creamy haze to a mystic land made
entirely of tumbled blue mountains. And then, one
of the best things about Biarritz is that you're next
door to Spain. Ah, that door of Spain! I've
knocked and been in through it, but just across the
threshold. The way of it was like this —

I'd been up early and out to the golf course for
a lesson from the professional; when I came home
a little before eleven Brown was waiting. He wanted
to know if I wouldn't care to have a peep at Spain,
and said that we could easily go there and back
by dinner-time. Aunt Mary and I were ready in a
"jiffy," so was the car, and we were buzzing away
along a beautiful road (though a little " accidente'e ,"
as the French say) near the ocean. There were the

The Lightning Conductor 151

most lovely lights I ever saw on land or sea, over
the mountains and the great, unquiet Atlantic; and
St. Jean de Luz, which we came to in no time, as
it seemed, was another charming little watering-
place for us to come and live if you get poor. A
good many English people do live there all the year
round, and whom do you think is one of them?
George Gissing. You know how I made you read
his books, and you said they seemed so real that
you felt you had got into the people's houses by
mistake, and ought to say "Excuse me"? Well, he
has come to live in St. Jean de Luz, the all-knowing
Brown tells me. His master admires Mr. Gissing
very much, so the Honourable John must be a nice
and clever man.

As for history, Brown is an inexhaustible mine.
I simply "put in my thumb and pull out a plum. "
But I forgot — there aren't usually plums in mines,
are there, except in the prospectuses? Anyhow, it
was Brown who made me realise what tremendously
interesting things frontiers are. That imaginary line,
and then — people, language, costumes, and customs
changing as if a fairy had waved a wand. The
frontier between France and Spain is a great wide
river — on purpose to give us another bridge. Doesn't
the name, "Bidassoa, " suggest a broad, flowing cur-
rent running swiftly to the sea? ^

This time we would have none of the bridge." It
was too much bother paying duty on the car, and
having a lot of red tape about getting it back again
in an hour or two; so we left Balzac, as I have
named it, at the last French town and rowed across,

152 The Lightning Conductor

on past the first Spanish town, Irun, to a much older,
more picturesque one — Fuenterrabia. A particularly
handsome boatman wanted to row us, but Brown
would do it himself, either to show how well he can
manage the oars, or else because the boatman had
abnormally long eyelashes, and Brown is rather sick
of eyelashes.

Even crossing the river and going down towards
the mouth of the stream (with a huge, old ruined
castle towering up to mark Fuenterrabia) was quite
thrilling, because of the things in history that have
happened all around. The estuary runs down to the
sea between mountains of wild and awesome shapes.
One of them is named after Wellington, because it
is supposed to look like his profile lying down, and
the other mountains had a chance to see his real
profile many times, though I'll be bound his enemies
never saw his back. He fought among them — both
mountains and enemies, and the latter were some
of Napoleon's smartest marshals. He took a whole
army across the ford in the Bidassoa, attacked Soult,
and chased him all the way up the mountains to
the very summit of La Rhune, a great conical peak
high up in the sky. Another thing was the Isle
des Faisans, right in the middle of the river, where
Philippe and Louis the Fourteenth fixed every-
thing up about Louis' Spanish bride. It's the
smallest island you ever saw; you wouldn't think
there would be room for a whole King of Spain and
a King of France to stand on it at the same time,
much less sign contracts.

When our boat touched Spanish soil on the beach

The Lightning Conductor 153

below Fuenterrabia, two rather ferocious-looking
Spaniards in uncomfortable uniforms were waiting
for us. They had the air of demanding "your money
or your life"; but after all it was only the extra-
ordinarily high, ugly collars of their overcoats which
gave them such a formidable appearance. They
were custom-house officers guarding the coast, thougli
how they see over those collars to find out what's
going on under their noses I don't know. Brown
says that soldiers at Madrid have to dress like that
in winter to protect themselves from the terrible
icy winds, and as Madrid sets the fashion for every-
thing in Spain, the provincial soldiers have to choke
themselves in the same way.

| It did seem to me that the very air of Spain was
different from across the river in France. It was
richer and heavier, like incense. It is nice to have
an imagination, isn't it, instead of having to potter
about leading facts by a string, as if they were dogs?
Well, anyway, I am sure people have bigger and
blacker eyes in Spain. Just walking up from the
beach to the strange old town, I saw two or three
peasant women and children with wonderful eyes,
like black velvet with stars shining through — eyes
that princesses would give fortunes for.

I couldn't help humming "In Old Madrid" under
my breath, and I fancied that the salt-smelling
breeze brought the snapping of castanets. The sun
was hot ; but coolness, and rich, tawny shadows
swallowed us up in a silent street, crowded with
fantastic, beautifully carved, bright-coloured houses,
all having balconies, each one more overhanging

154 The Lightning Conductor

than the jther. Not a soul was to be seen; OUT
footsteps rang on the narrow side- walk, and it
seemed rude of our voices when we talked to wake
the sleepy silence out of its afternoon nap. But
suddenly a handsome young man appeared from a
side street, and stopping in the middle of the road,
vigorously tinkled a musical bell. Immediately the
street became alive. Each house door showed a
man; women hung over the gaily-draped balconies;
children ran out and clustered round the bell-ringer.
He began to speak very fast in guttural Spanish,
and we couldn't understand a word he said, though
Brown has a smattering of the language — enough to
get on with in shops and hotels. When he had
finished everyone laughed. All up and down the
street came the sound of laughter; deep, bass
laughter from the men; contralto laughter from the
women. The handsome bell-ringer laughed too, and
then vanished as suddenly as he had come. All the
life of the quaint street seemed to fade away with
him. Slowly the people took themselves indoors;
the balconies were empty; the street silent as in a
city of the dead. It was like something on the stage ;
but I suppose it's just a bit of everyday life in Fuen-
terrabia and old, old Spain.

We went on up to the castle we had seen from the
beach, and I turned my eyes away from a big, ugly
round building, like a country panorama-place, for
that was the bull ring, and the one thing that makes
Spain hateful to me. I didn't want even to think of
it. The gateway of the palace — for it had been a
palace — was splendid — an arch across the street. But

The Lightning Conductor 155

4

on the other side I burst out laughing at a sign, in
what was meant to be English, advertising the castle
for sale. Capitals were sprinkled about everywhere;
the painter had thought they would look pretty, and
evidently it was held out as a lure to Britishers and
Americans that Charles the Fifth had built it and
lived in it. I know Mrs. Washington Potts would
love to buy it, and then go home and mention in an
absent-minded manner that she'd "acquired a royal
palace in Spain as a winter residence." Can't you
hear her? But oh, poor palace! It's as airy a
mansion now as most castles in Spain, though what's
left of its walls is about fifteen feet thick. Still, the
glorious view of sea and mountains from the roof
would be worth paying for, and wouldn't need
thousands of dollars' worth of restoration, like the
house.

While we lingered in Fuenterrabia absorbing the
atmosphere of old Spain, the time was inconsiderate
enough to run away and leave us with only a twisted
channel among sandbanks to remember it by. So
we took an oddly shaped carriage with a white
tasselled awning on it and drove back to Hendaye
and our motor-car. But the day was a great success,
and I congratulated Brown, which Aunt Mary said
it was silly to do, as it is his business to think of
everything for us.

Now, as you see by the date of my letter, we're at
Pau, to which we came from Biarritz in a delicious
morning's run through a pearl- coloured landscape
trimmed with blue mountains. As we got into the
town the Lightning Conductor, who was driving,

156 The Lightning Conductor

whisked us through a few streets, swooped round a
large square, and suddenly stopped the car on a
broad terrace with an air as though he said, "There!
what do you think of that f" I think I gasped. I
know I wanted to by way of saluting what must be
one of the most wonderful views in the whole world.

We had stopped on a terrace not the least like a
street. At one end was an old grey chateau; then
a long line of imposing buildings, almost too graceful
to be hotels, which they really were ; a church sending
a white, soaring spire into the blue sky; an open,
shady place, with a statue of Henri Quatre; villas
hotels, hotels villas in a sparkling line, with great
trees to cut it and throw a blue haze of shadow.
That is one side of the terrace. The other is an iron
railing, a sudden drop into space, and — the view.
Your eyes travel across a park where even in this
mid-winter season roses are blooming and date palms
are flourishing. Then comes a hurrying river, giving
life and music to the landscape; beyond that a wide
sweep of hills, with bunches of poplars, and valleys
where white villages lie half concealed; and further
still, leaping into the sky, the immense line of the
Pyrenees, looking to-day so near and sharply out-
lined that they seemed to be cut out of cardboard.
When I was able to speak I told Brown that the
Very first thing I should do would be to walk to those
delectable mountains. "I don't think you could
quite manage it, miss," he said, with his quiet smile,
"for they are nearly forty miles away." Then we
turned round and drove into the courtyard of the
hotel, which faces the great view.

The Lightning Conductor 157

It looked tremendously swell, and Aunt Mary and
I tried to live up to it by sweeping haughtily in as if
we hadn't collected any of the historic dust of France
on our motoring coats and hats. Just as we were
acquitting ourselves quite creditably who should step
out from a group of the very people we were hoping
to impress with our superiority but Jimmy Payne!
Oh, you wicked old man, I believe you must have
wired or written him a hint. You know you have a
weakness for Jimmy, or rather for his family. But I
can't go about marrying the sons of all the pretty
ladies you were in love with in your vanished youth.
Probably there were dozens, for you're as soft-hearted
as you are hard-headed, and you can't deny it.

Still, I don't mind confessing that I was rather
pleased to see Jimmy, not a bit because he is Jimmy,
but because he seemed to bring a breath of homey-
ness with him, and it is nice to have an old friend
turn up in a "far countree " when you've got dust on
your hat and the other women who are staring at you
haven't. If only the friend doesn't proceed to bore
you by insisting on being something more than a
friend, which I hope Jimmy is by this time tired of
doing, I think I shall rather enjoy the encounter
than otherwise. As for anything else, it doesn't
appeal to me that he's his mother's son, or that he's
clever in stocks, or that he's got as much money
as you have. So now you know, and I hope he
does.

Well, we talked a little, and then I found that Aunt
Mary was chattering like mad with the Garrisons
(one "talks" oneself; other people "chatter"; for-

158 The Lightning Conductor

eigners "jabber"; so we were all glad to see each
other, or said so, which comes to the same thing.

"How's your automobile?" was almost the first
thing I asked Jimmy, for the last time I'd seen him
it was the pride of his heart. "I suppose," I said,
"that, like us, you're making a tour around Europe
on it? "

I thought his face changed a little, though I don't
know why it should. " Oh," said he, " I've lent it to
my friend Lord Lane; charming fellow I met last
year in Paris. He'll meet me with it a little later.
Where are you going after this? "

"We're working slowly on to the Riviera," said I.

"Oh, isn't that funny," said Jimmy, "that's where
Lord Lane and I are going to meet! At Cannes, or
Nice, or Monte Carlo; it isn't quite settled yet which.
I suppose you're going to all of them, as you're
.driving about on a car? "

I said that we expected to, and pointed through
Ithe glass door at my automobile, with Brown super-
intending the hotel servants who were lifting down
"the luggage. He looked hard at the car and the
chauffeur, as if he envied me both, and I think he
had something more to say which he considered
important, but I was in a hurry to change and make
myself prettier — much prettier — than the Garrison
girls.

By the way, they — the Garrisons — suggested that
we should sit at a small table with them, where
they've already given a place to Jimmy. We
accepted the invitation, and now we've just dined
together. My frock was a dream; it's always nice

The Lightning Conductor 159

to come to the sort of hotel where one can wear
something pretty, as here and at Biarritz. After-
wards we all put on coats and cloaks and strolled
in the moonlight on the terrace. Jimmy tried to call
up from the "vasty deep" of his broken (?) heart the
spirit of the Past, with a capital P, but I would force
him into the track of automobilism instead. I don't
believe he knows a bit more than I do about it, if as
much, now that I've learned such a lot from the
Lightning Conductor, and if he takes to boasting
I'll just show him.

Now, good-night, my dear old Dad. I shall treat
myself to a "night-cap" draught of mountain air
before I go to bed on my balcony facing the Pyrenees.
Your

MOLLY-WHO- LOVES-ONLY- YOU.

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

PAU, December 15.

Dear Safety Valve,

After the recent budget from Biarritz I had
no intention of inflicting another upon you — at least,
until we should reach Nice. But — there's as much
virtue in "but" as in "if" — you will be thinking in
Davos that it never rains but it pours letters; I am
thinking in Pau that it never rains but it pours young
men — Miss Randolph's young men. We've got
another one now, in his way as objectionable as
the first; and though I don't regard this specimen
as an active menace to the car, nor do I believe
he will resort to ripping up the tyres, he has his knife
into me.

Well, we arrived in Pau, which I know of old, and
in which I've had some rather jolly times, as Miss
Randolph would put it. Pau is the sort of place
where you meet your friends, and I scented danger,
but we were booked for only two days, and luck
had befriended me so well thus far that I trusted
it once more. I came to a hotel at some distance
from the Goddess's. Between two evils I chose the
less, and put my name down as " J. Winston," hoping
that if anyone knew me they wouldn't know Miss

160

The Lightning Conductor 161

Randolph, or vice versd. Besides, I took counsel
with prudence, engaged a private sitting-room, and
ordered my meals sent up, to avoid being on show
in the salle d manger. All seemed serene, when
suddenly an adverse wind began to blow (as usual)
from an unexpected quarter.

Lured by fancied security, I took advantage of
that idleness for which Satan is popularly supposed
to provide mischief to put in a little private fun on
my own account. On the morning after our arrival
in Pau, Miss Randolph informed me that the car
and I would not be wanted, as -she had met some
American friends and would be at their disposal
during the day. In an evil moment a golf rage
overpowered me, and I yielded, seeing no special
reason why I shouldn't. The Pau links are the best
on the Continent, and I had retained my membership
of the club from last year, when I was here with my
mother, so that was all right. I nicked into a cab
and told the man to drive to the golf club.

The steward remembered me, so did the profes-
sional; but as it was fairly early in the morning as
well as early in the season there were only a couple of
men in the smoking-room. I sat down to write a
letter at a corner table, and as one of the fellows was
talking in loud tones, advertising all the wares in
his shop windows, so to speak, I couldn't help
over-hearing what he said. He had one of those
objectionable, Anglo-maniac, American voices that
get on your nerves ; you know the snobbish sort
that, instead of being proud as punch of their own
country, want to appear more English than the

1 62 The Lightning Conductor

English, and get up for the part like an actor with
all an actor's exaggerations. Well, this was one
of those voices; and for all the owner might have
taken his accent from his groom, he was mightily
pleased with it.

I hadn't looked at the chap at first, but when I heard
him telling his meek little exclamatory friend stories
about a lot of my own friends (invariably making
his impression by mentioning their titles first, then
dropping into Christian names), I did take a glance
at him over my shoulder.

I found him a curious combination of Sherlock
Holmes and Little Lord Fauntleroy. He might
have "gone on" at a moment's notice as understudy
either for Mr. William Gillette in the one part, or for
that clever little What's-his-name who resurrected
the latter in London lately; though as for his dra-
matic talent, I've yet to judge, and may be called
upon to do so, as you shall hear.

He went on gassing about all sorts of impossible
feats he'd accomplished on a Panhard car, which
he alluded to as his. According to himself, Fournier
wasn't in it with him. Having heard to the end the
tale of a motor race in which Sherlock-Fauntleroy,
in company with the Duke of Bedford, had beaten
King Edward the Seventh, the other man, deeply
impressed, inquired through his nose (which he, being
frankly Far- Western, didn't mind using as a channel
of communication) whether his magnificent acquaint-
ance was at present travelling on the famous Panhard,
and had it with him.

"No," was the answer; "fact is I got a bit tired of

The Lightning Conductor 163,

keeping the road, and lent my car to my old friend
Montie — Lord Lane, don't you know, who's running,
it about the Riviera now. "

Aha, my boy, does that make you sit up? I assure
you it did me. And if, just before, I hadn't heard
the gentleman discoursing on the pleasures of a
certain trip taken with Burford at a date when you
and Burford and I happened to be together, I should
have sat still straighter. I might have said to myself,
"So all is discovered. My Montie — or rather his
Montie — has taken a leaf out of Brown's book, and
instead of stuffing himself with fresh air and eggs at
Davos, is flashing about the Riviera in his dear
chum's Panhard, which he must have lately learnt
to drive, as he didn't know gearing from belts when
I saw him last." As it is, however, I assure you no
such suspicions are at present keeping me awake;
I've enough worries of my own to do that.

But Fauntleroy-Holmes was continuing, and I sat
in my obscure corner inhaling his tobacco smoke and
his equally ephemeral anecdotes

"I am going on to Nice myself in a day or two,
with some ladies, on their motor-car," said he. " Very
good car, I believe; one of the ladies very handsome.
She has a chauffeur, of course, but I shall drive and
let him do the dirty work. I fancy I shall be able to
show my friend something in the way of driving.
She wants to learn, and ought to have good instruc-
tion to begin with ; one never recovers form if taught
bad ways at first."

I lay low, like Brer Rabbit, but my ears were
burning. He'd named no names, and I had no

164 The Lightning Conductor

reason to fit a cap on anybody's head. There were
plenty of ladies and plenty of motor-cars in Pau, any
of which might be going to Nice. I had never seen
the man before, and didn't believe Miss Randolph
knew him from Adam; still, I had a sensation of
heat in my ears, and when I'd finished the letter
I had begun (it was to Burford, by the way, but
I refrained from telling him how his name had been
taken in vain, less out of good nature than because
I couldn't be bothered), I got up, went out, and asked
the steward who the young man was who looked lika
Sherlock Holmes.

He knew at once who I meant, grinned, and
informed me that the gentleman was a very rich
American, named Payne, a great amateur auto-
mobilist, and a keen golfer. How he had obtained
all these particulars it wasn't difficult to guess, when
one reflected upon Mr. Payne's fondness for talking
of himself. By the way, have you ever met the man
at all?

A few minutes after questioning the steward, I was
strolling on the lawn thinking over what I had heard,
when Sherlock walked out of the club, his obtrusive
eyeglass dangling from his buttonhole.

He advanced towards me, somewhat to my sur-
prise, and hailed me from afar, seeing, I suppose, that
I was inclined to move on. "I say, sir," he began,
"if you want a game, will you take me on? I've
a friend just gone, and there doesn't seem to be
anyone here but you and me "

By this time he had stuck the big monocle in his
eye, where it had somewhat the effect of a biscuit.

The Lightning Conductor 165

I fancied it was the addition of the eyeglass which
discomposed his expression, but almost immediately
I realised that the change was due to a cause more
violent.

"B — ah Jove!" he ejaculated. And then, "Ton
my word, what damned impertinence! " He stood
glaring at me through that eyeglass with such an
" I am the Duke of Omnium, who the devil are you? "
sort of expression that I thought he must be mad,
and I stared also, in amazed silence.

After looking me up and down he began again.
"What do you mean by it, I want to know, swagger-
ing about here, among gentlemen, as if you were one
of Us? I'll have you put out by the waiters." With
this extraordinary outburst he turned on his heel, and
was making off towards the club-house; but as you
know, my temper is not of the sweetest, and mad or
not mad, I didn't exactly yearn over Mr. Payne.
I took advantage of the long legs about which "my
friend Montie" has occasionally chaffed me and
caught him up. I cannot conceal from you that
I did more. I gripped him by the shoulder. I held
him firmly, apparently somewhat against his will.
I also shook him, and it now comes dimly back to
me that his eyeglass jumped out of his eye.

"You damned cad!" I then remarked in a tone
which some people might consider abrupt; "what in
h do you mean? "

He took to stuttering — some men do in emergen-
cies— and I knew from that instant that he couldn't
drive a motor-car. " L — et go," he stammered like a
schoolboy. " You — you — confounded chaiiffeur, you!

1 66 The Lightning Conductor

I'll tell your mistress of you, and have you discharged.
You — you're Miss,. Randolph's chauffeur, and you
come here to pass yourself off as a member at a
gentleman's club."

On the point of knocking him down, I decided I
wouldn't, and dropped him instead like a hot chest-
nut. You see, he "had me on the hip"; for I am
Miss Randolph's chauffeur, and there was no good
denying it. In a small way it was one of the nastiest
situations of my life. What "A." in Vanity Fair
would have done I don't know, and I didn't know
what to do myself for a minute. You see, my pro-
phetic soul tells me that the time hasn't come to
confess all and throw myself on the Goddess's mercy,
as I hope it may some day; and I couldn't afford to
be plunged into hot water with her when the facts
would look fishy and be impossible to explain. Still,
I couldn't eat humble pie with that Bounder; sooner
I would have quietly killed him, and stuffed him into
a hole in the links. However, a sweet little cherub
of inspiration looked out for the fate of poor Jack,
and whispered an alternative in my ear.

"Do you dare deny it? " Payne demanded, pluck-
ing up courage.

"I ' dare' do a good deal," said I, looking him
straight in the eyes. " But I don't intend to deny it.
I am Miss Randolph's chauffeur." How he had
found that out I couldn't imagine.

"Then, I can tell you, you won't long remain so,''
blustered the fellow, as cocksure as if he were her
brother, or something nearer — hang him! "A man
who is capable of practising such deception isn't fit

The Lightning Conductor 167

to be trusted with a lady. I shall get you the
sack."

"You ought to be a good judge of deception," said
I. "Have you told Miss Randolph yet about that
trip of yours with the Duke of Burford last
summer?"

Sherlock-Fauntleroy got as red as a beet, and the
Fauntleroy characteristics predominated. I thought
tears were about to start from his eyes, but he merely
relapsed into another fit of the stutters. "Wh — hat
d~ — do you mean?" he chattered. "Y — you don't
know what you're talking about."

"Oh yes, I do," I said, growing calmer as he grew
-excited, "a good deal more than you knew what you
were talking about when you claimed the Duke as
your friend. I happened to be with him at the time
last summer, when you said you were driving him on
your car."

" You with the Duke! " sneered Sherlock. "Who
would believe that? "

"Miss Randolph would," said I. "The Duke of
Burford was driving his own car last summer. Now
you can guess how I happened to be with him.
There was just one other man on board; your
friend Montie, Lord Lane, you know. Lord Lane
was another of my old masters." (Hope you don't
object to being referred to as an Old Master, and
I was your fag at Eton.) "I know him very well.
He can do a good many things, can Lord Lane,
but he can't drive a motor-car. And another little
detail you've got wrong. He isn't running about
on the Riviera. He is at Davos Platz. I've had a

1 68 The Lightning Conductor

letter from him there the other day; he's very
thoughtful of his old servants. Miss Randolph
would think it queer if you said you expected to
meet Lord Lane on the Riviera with your car, and
I showed her a letter from him which proved he'd
been at Davos for the last six weeks. Or he wouldn't
mind telegraphing if I wired."

"You're a regular blackmailer," gasped Payne.

"Not at all," said I. "I suggest a bargain, but I
don't want money. All I want is not to lose my
job. Don't you give me away, and I won't give you
away. Do you agree to that compromise and no
more said? "

We had been holding each other by the eye, but
suddenly his wandered, assisted by the monocle. So
odd an expression sat on his face that I followed his
straying glance, and saw what he saw — Miss Ran-
dolph! Miss Randolph at one of the long French
windows of the club-house, with several other ladies.
Without a second's hesitation I gripped Payne by
the arm and dragged him across the lawn, using him
as a screen. Once round the corner of the house,
I let him go; but I dared not wait to chaffer. "Re-
member, it's a bargain," I reminded the fellow.
'' While you keep to your part I keep to mine, and
not a moment longer." With this I darted into one
of the waiting cabs. That was a narrow shave, but I
congratulated myself that I had come cut of it "on
top," joyful in the hope that I should snatch Miss
Randolph away in a day or two, and the episode
would be closed. But mice and men should go slow
in self-congratulation. Even a confirmed liar occa-

The Lightning Conductor 169

sionally tells the truth by mistake. Next day
(which means to-day) I learned this through bitter
experience. Nothing had happened, and when I
presented myself to Miss Randolph in the morning
for orders, her manner was so pleasant, so exactly
the same as usual, that I made sure Mr. Payne
had chosen the better part of valour and held his
peace. Evening came, however; my mistress sent
for me, as I was informed through the invaluable
hall-porter. Coward conscience, or some other in-
tricate internal organ, gave a twinge. I asked myself
blankly if I had been betrayed, if I were in for a
scolding, if I should have to choose between being
ignominiously chucked out of my precious berth, or
prematurely owning up to the trick I have played,
with the consequent risk ot losing my lady forever.
I felt pretty sick as I went up the servants' stairs to
Miss Randolph's floor at the "Gassisn" and knocked
-at the door of her private sitting-room.

The door was on the latch, and as I tapped I heard
Aunt Mary exclaim in a tone of extreme scorn, "Ask
him '*/ he objects,' indeed! One would think you
were the servant and he the master. You shall do
nothing of the kind."

My knocking evidently cut short the argument.
Miss Randolph called "Come in!" and I obeyed, all
black leather and humility. I hardly raised my eyes
to the ladies, yet I saw that She was looking adorable
in a white dress, with nothing but sparkling lacey
stuff over the loveliest neck and arms on earth. She
smiled, so I hoped that my sin had not found me out,
but it was not precisely one of her own frank, starry

170 The Lightning Conductor

smiles; there was something new and constrained,
and my heart still misgave me.

"Brown," said she (and I observed that Aunt
Mary had fixed her with a threatening eye), "Brown,
I thought I'd send for you to say that we'll have
another passenger to-morrow for a few days. Or
that is we may have to ask him to drive sometimes,
out of politeness, for I believe he's a good driver,
and he might be hurt if we didn't; though I'm sure
he drives no better than you."

By this time I knew what was coming, and steeled
myself to bear it, but there might have been a cer-
tain involunatry elongation of countenance, for the
poor child rushed into explanations to save my
battered feelings. "You see," she went on, "this
gentleman, Mr. Payne, is a very old friend of the
family, and he has been travelling in Europe a long
time, for a rest. He overworked himself or some-
thing, and broke down. Now, he has lent his car
to an English friend of his, Lord Lane, whom he
arranged to rejoin on the Riviera. But he doesn't
feel well, and railway travelling disagrees with him.
His doctor here has just told him that he must be
•continually in the open air if he doesn't want to have
a relapse; and Miss Kedison thinks my father would
be annoyed if we didn't ask him to drive with us, as
we are going the way he must go. The Napier is
such a fine car, I suppose it can take four as well as
three, and a little more luggage?"

" Oh yes, miss, there'll be no difficulty about that*'*
I answered grudgingly.

The Lightning Conductor 171

"And you won't feel that it is lack of trust in you,
if he drives part of the time?"

At this Aunt Mary glared, but that Angel paid not
the slightest attention.

There is an unwritten law that a man shall not be
a brute; and after her sweet consideration of my
chauffery feelings I couldn't show myself ungracious.
I assured her that I should not feel hurt, and that
she was very kind to think of me at all. I would do
my best for the party, unless, of course, my services
would be superfluous, now that she was to be accom-
panied by a friend who was a competent driver.

I wonder what I should have done in the unlikely
event that she took me at my word? Picture my
feelings, bereft of my Goddess, bereft of my Napier
at one and the same time, constrained to resignation,
while a confounded impostor drove off with both
from under my very nose ! Miss Randolph hastened
to deny any such thought, and to impress upon me
my value as a chauffeur. But things are bad enough
as they are.

Here I am saddled with a fellow who hates me as
a cur hates a man who has thrashed him, and will
snap if he dares. Instead of turning my back upon
him, I have to carry him away on it; and if a rod
isn't in pickle for me, I'm not

Your old friend,

JACK WINSTON.

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

TOULOUSE, December 16.

Dear Montie,

I can't let you alone, you see. I must un-
burden myself, or something will happen — something
apoplectic. If I have sinned, I am punished; and
so far as I can see the worst still stretches before me
in a long vista. It was good of you to scrawl off
that second letter, at midnight, as an afterthought.
It was forwarded, and has just reached me here, by
grand good luck.

You say I would do better to make a clean breast
of it; but that's easier said than done. You're not
here, and you can't see the "lie of the land" as I can.
I'll explain the position to you, from my point of
view, for I think you don't quite understand it.

Not to mince matters, I am a Fraud, and Miss
Randolph is the sort of girl to resent being imposed
upon, If this Payne, who rejoices in the name of
Jimmy, should find out the truth about me and tell
her to-morrow, she would be exceedingly angry, as
she would have a right to be, and would, I think,
find it hard to forgive me. It is because I have felt
this instinctively that I have let things slide. I have
drifted down the stream of enjoyment, saying to the
passing hour, like Goethe's hero, "Stay, thou art

172

The Lightning Conductor 173

fair," though too often the thought would present
itself that this could not go on for ever. Besides,
there were drawbacks, big or little, according to my
mood. I have always kept it before myself, more
or less, that some day Miss Randolph would dispense
with me and my car, in the natural course of affairs,
even if the event were not hastened by some contre-
temps or other ; and that it might then be as difficult
to adjust matters as it is now. But in truth I hope-
it won't be so. What I aim to do is to make myself
so indispensable to her as Brown that she can't bring
herself to get on without me as Jack Winston. I
haven't done that yet, though it isn't for lack of
trying; therefore I'm not ready for the crisis, and
therefore I'm afraid of Payne. Yes, "afraid," that's
the word. And my one consolation is that he's
equally afraid of me.

Your ordinary, habitual liar can bear up if he's
found out, and laugh it off somehow, but your snob
and boaster can't. This man could hardly survive
being stripped of his dukes and earls, with which he's
covered his untitled nakedness as with a mantle, for
the eyes of Miss Randolph. In this natural phen-
omenon lies my chance of gaining time, and other
things that I want.

You would have had some pure enjoyment out
of to-day if you had been the fifth person on my
Napier. If you could have heard Aunt Mary (who,
in common with a certain type of American, worships
a title and rolls it on her tongue as if it were a plover's
egg out of season) asking "Jimmy" questions about
his grand English friends! Knowing that my cold

174 The Lightning Conductor

and venomous eye was upon him, and writhing
under it, he had to answer her questions. "What
sort of looking man is the Duke of Burford, Jimmy?
Did you ever stay at any of his country places? Is
it true that he often entertains the Royalties? Were
you ever asked to a house-party to meet the King and
Queen? "

I could almost have found it in my heart to pity
him; but my interests at stake were too big for me
to have derived the serene pleasure from the situa-
tion that you might have enjoyed as an initiated
outsider. But with my attempted explanations and
my chortlings I've digressed too much, and I'll get
back to "Hecuba."

We started from the "Gassion. " Miss Randolph
announced that she would drive at first. This was,
I judged, a sop for me, as Cerberus. But Payne was
given the seat of honour beside her, and I was rele-
gated to the tonneau with Aunt Mary and the other
impedimenta. My day was over!

Miss Kedison considers it infra dig. to converse
with a servant, though she has been content often
enough to use me as a guide-book. She doesn't
like sitting in front, so she was obliged to put up
with my physical nearness, but she took pains to
emphasise her soul's remoteness. I think her opinion
of me has been for some time that I am "too big
for my boots, " and I was not surprised to learn that
it was by her advice Mr. Payne had been invited
io join the party. No doubt she thought it would
put me in my proper place, and so it has. Besides,
we had not been long en route when I gleaned

The Lightning Conductor 175

from several indications, small in themselves, that
"Jimmy" is a great favourite with her, so great that
she would not object to becoming his aunt by mar-
riage. They are warm friends, and if he hasn't al-
ready poured into her ear confidences prejudicial to
me, there, I fear, lies danger for the future. .

We had not been gone long from Pau before Miss-
Randolph glanced round at me — a risky thing to do-
when you're driving; but the road was straight and
clear as far as the eye could see. I was half in.
hopes she would request me to drive; but not so.
"By the way, Brown," said she, "I forgot to ask;,
didn't I see you at the golf club the other day? "

From the form of the question I couldn't tell
whether Payne had played the sneak or not, nor
could I guess from her face, as she had turned to-
business again. As for him, he had ignored me-
haughtily since the start.

"Me, miss, at the golf club?" I promptly pro-
tested, regardless of grammar and not sure I wasn't
in for an explosion which would blow poor Brown-
sky-high; "why, a chauffeur wouldn't be admitted
there. "

"I suppose not," she answered over her shoulder.
" But there was a man very like you when my friends
took me — and walking with Mr. Payne, too."

"Now for it!" thought I. But then Jimmy's first
words reassured me. "Oh, I don't know all the*
strangers one talks to at a club, " he replied in haste;
and then, by way of changing the subject, the.
bounder asked Miss Randolph if she wouldn't let.
him drive. "It's over a hundred miles to Toulouse,.

176 The Lightning Conductor

and you'll want a firm hand, for the days are short, "
he had the impudence to add.

At that I lost my head, and made a big mistake.
I felt I couldn't stand sitting still while he tried
experiments with my car, and almost before I knew
what I was doing I blurted out, "Beg pardon, miss,
but are you sure this gentleman understands driving
•a Napier? My master expected that I was to drive
liis car when he let it out, and "

Such a look of reproach as the Goddess threw me !
"But / understand that, while I hire the car it is
-mine to do as I like with, in reason, " she cut me
.short. " Mr. Payne tells me that he has often driven
his friend the Duke of Burford's Napier. And if
anything happens to your master's car while I have
it, I will pay for the damage up to its full value, so
your mind may be at ease on his account. "

With this well-deserved, but none the less crushing
.-snub she brought the car to a standstill and inad-
vertently stopped the motor. After virtually agree-
ing the night before to let Payne drive, I ought
to have kept my mouth shut; but you will admit
that the temptation was strong. I descended, like
a well-conducted chauffeur, to help my mistress
change places with my hated rival, and of course
it was my duty to start the motor again, which I did.
Before I could get out of the way, Payne started —
on the third speed, like the duffer he is, changing
so quickly to the second that I had to race after the
car and hurl myself into the tonneau to avoid being
left behind. In doing this I unfortunately trod on
Aunt Mary's toes. She groaned, glared, and mut-

The Lightning Conductor 177

tered only half below her breath, " Clumsy creature ! "
Thoroughly humiliated, and no longer in a mood to
care whether their Jimmy wrecked the car and
killed us (all but one) I took my seat. I do believe
that Aunt Mary secretly thinks me capable of having
misjudged and ill-treated Eyelashes, who laid him-
self out to " be nice " to her.

Hardly had we started when I heard Miss Ran<-
dolph telling Payne that this car belonged to the
Honourable John Winston, Lord Brighthelmston's
son, and asking him if he had ever met Mr. Winston.
I suppose that, in the excitement of managing a
big machine which he knew little or nothing about,
Payne forgot that, since I "went with the car," the
owner must have been one of those (to him) fatal
old masters of mine. He can't bear to deny the
soft impeachment of knowing anyone whom he-
thinks may be a swell, and in the hurry of the mo-
ment habit got the better of prudence.

"Oh yes, I know Jack very well! " he exclaimed;
then drew in his breath with a little gasp which he
turned into a cough. In that moment he had
probably remembered me.

"I suppose you know his mother, then? " said Miss
Randolph. "I met her in Paris. She's at Cannes
now, and so you will see her there."

"Ye — es," returned Jimmy. "Oh yes, I shall
certainly see her. I know Lord Brighthelmston
better than I do her; but I shall call, of course."

What with his fear of having committed himself
anew, and the chill in his marrow produced by my
critical eye on his vertebrae, he grew more and more

178 The Lightning Conductor

nervous, wobbling whenever there was a delicate
piece of steering to be done or a restive horse to
be passed. He changed speeds so clumsily that the
pinions went together with a crash each time, and
shivers ran up and down my spine when I heard the
noise and thought of the damage this conceited idiot
might do to my poor gears. Could you stand by
like Patience on the lee cathead, smiling at a wet
-swab, while some duffer with a whip and spurs
bestrode your favourite stallion, Roland? Perhaps
that simile will help you to understand how I've been
feeling all day.

Payne is a rank amateur. I doubt if he ever
•drove a Napier before, and would bet something he
-depended for his success to-day (such as it was) on
keen observation of everything Miss Randolph did
before he took the helm. He knows how to steer
a moderately straight course and to change speeds —
that's about all; and I wouldn't trust his nerve in
an emergency. However, we bowled along without
incident through Tarbes and Tournay, thanks more
to the fine car than the driver; but when mounting
a long stretch of steep road beyond a place called
Lanespede, where a great railway viaduct crosses the
valley, Payne missed his change, and then completely
lost his head, failing to put on the brakes to prevent
us running down the hill backwards. Luckily I was
sitting on the brake side, and reaching out of the
tonneau, I seized the lever of the hand-brake and
jammed it on. Next instant (to make quite sure)
I jumped out, ran to the front, and lowered the
sprag. I don't think any of them knew what a

The Lightning Conductor 179

narrow escape we'd had, and Payne covered himself
by abusing the car. We started up again on the
second, and came out on an undulating plain over-
looking a little watering-place called Capvern-les-
Bains, lying far below in a dimple of the Pyrenean
foothills.

There was no other incident till we came to Mon-
trejeau, where my road-book showed that there
was an uncommonly steep hill. So I ventured to
say over Payne's shoulder, "Better look out here,
sir; a bad hill." The cad had not the civility to
notice my warning, but charged through the long
street of the town till he came to the verge of a
dangerous descent, dipping steeply and suddenly for
a little way, then turning abruptly to the left. He
was taking the hill at a reckless pace, not because
he was plucky, but because he knew no better; and
half-way down, seeing a lumbering station-omnibus
climbing slowly up, not leaving much room, he began
to get wild in his steering. Again I hung out, and
gently but firmly put on the hand-brake, steadying
the car. The idiot didn't even see how I had saved
him, for when we got safely down he said to Miss
Randolph, "Took that hill flying, didn't I?" I can
tell you I was glad when we pulled up for luncheon
at St. Gaudens, knowing that the road here turns
away from the Pyrenees to cross the great plain of
Languedoc.

Blessed plain of Languedoc, which has been abused
by some travellers for its monotony! Sitting silently
in the tonneau with Aunt Mary, I revelled in the
long, straight level of wide, poplar-fringed road that

180 The Lightning Conductor

stretched as far as the eye could reach, running up
to a point in the distant perspective. "Here, at any
rate," I reflected, "the duffer at the wheel can't do us
much harm." It was a beautiful scene, had I been
in tune to enjoy it, for the Pyrenees showed their
blue outlines on the far horizon, and the Garonne
gave us many pictures near at hand. There was in
particular one sweet sylvan "bit" at a place called
St. Martory, which, though it was but a fleeting
glimpse, framed itself in my mind with all the pre-
cision of a stereoscopic view.

It was a relief to me, when this evening, we ran
•into Toulouse; its many buildings of brick lying
along the bank of the broad and peaceful Garonne,
looking curiously rose-hued in the level rays of the
declining sun.

But poor car! when I set to work at cleaning it
after its ill-treatment it seemed to reproach me for
disloyalty. Its very lamps were like mournful, mis-
understood eyes. And this is only the first day of
many. How long, O friend, how long? I don't
quite see what is to become of your unfortunate

JACK WINSTON.

NARBONNE, December 17.

I didn't post the beginning of this letter. I felt
I should want to add something.

Another day has passed — a day of alarms and
•excursions. Payne has made an ass of himself,
and I have scored off him, winning my way back
to the front seat of the car, and relegating him to

The Lightning Conductor 181

the tonneau with Aunt Mary. But I have not shaken
him off. He's still in our pocket, and to all appear-
ance means to stick there. The situation, therefore,
remains essentially what it was yesterday.

But for the incident of which I will tell you, this
might have been one of the most delightful bits of the
whole tour. Even though at first I was stuffed into
the tonneau, I couldn't help finding pleasure in the
pictures through which we flashed in the earlier part
of the day.

There was a good deal of pavt to traverse before we
were clear of Toulouse, and then we came into a fine,
open world, chasing and passing many peasants'
carts. These always occupy the middle of the road,
and as their drivers are often asleep, there is much
blowing of the horn and shouting before they pull
over to their right side. Presently we found out the
meaning of this stream of carts, for we ran into a
large village with turkeys and geese all over the road,
like carpet bedding, tied by the legs and cackling
loudly. There were crowds of peasants — old and
young; the old women with neat, black silk head-
dresses framing their brown, wrinkled faces; and
through the midst of this animated scene we had to
drive at a foot-pace, tootling on the horn. On the
other side of the long village we found ourselves on
a wide, level road, that for smoothness would shame a
billiard-table, crossed the green Canal du Midi, and
ran for a while by its side, passing a queer obelisk
erected to Riquet, its constructor.

Suddenly, on mounting a hill, an enormous view
spread out before us. The distant Pyrenees showed

1 82 The Lightning Conductor

their serrated line far away to the right, their snowy
tops spectral over an intervening range of hills; to
the left stretched a vast, undulating tract of country,
with towns and church spires distinctly outlined in
the blear, crisp air — for it was a day of glorious
lights. Beyond all was a range of vague, blue hills
which I knew to be the Cevennes, sacred to the
memory of Robert Louis Stevenson.

We sped through village after village — a long
street; children in blouses playing strange games,
disputing in shrill voices, wagging little eloquent
fingers under each other's noses; handsome men
clothed in blue, with red sashes and the universal
berret on their heads, guiding with their cruel goads
patient teams of yoked oxen; a group of persons
round a church door — a wedding, perhaps a funeral ;
old women knitting in the sun, young women smiling
from windows — all these impressions follow each
other like flickering pictures in a cinematograph;
and then with the last flicker one is out again on the
broad, white road, with the flying trees spinning by
on either hand, and the white, filmy clouds floating
in an azure sky. It is only on the motor-car that you
get all these sensations. In a train you are in a box ;
on a motor you are in a chariot of fire with the wide
heavens open above you.

At Castelnaudary there was another scene of ani-
mation, for here also it was market day; and though
it was only twenty miles or so on to Carcassonne (out
intended destination), my betters decided that they
would take luncheon at the hotel in Castelnaudary.
For the first time since Payne has been with us Miss

The Lightm'ng Conductor 183

Randolph seemed to wish to restore me to my old,
lost footing. "You must lunch with us, Brown,"
she said, with a smile that goes straight to one's
heart. But I was not in a gracious mood. I had
had enough of Aunt Mary; I could not stand the
haughty Payne. I answered, therefore, rather shortly.
There were certain adjustments to be done on the
car which would occupy some time, I said, and
I would take my luncheon later. Her poor little
friendly smile went out, like a lamp extinguished.
For an instant she lingered, then turned away with-
out a word, and I could have bitten out my own
surly tongue.

To justify myself I pottered with the car, then
went moping off to another hotel, and tried to restore
my lost spirits with patt de joie de canard and fresh
walnuts, which would have delighted the palate of a
happier man.

At it was I had neither the heart nor the stomach
to linger over the feast, and consequently got back
long before the others were ready for me. They
didn't hurry themselves. I promise you. While busy-
ing myself in nicking dust off the car, a courteous
little crowd assembled and questioned me as to the
make of the car (expressing surprise when they heard
it was all English, even to the tyres) and as to how
far I had come. When I said "From Dieppe vid
Biarritz" a murmur of respect rippled to the outer
edge of the group, and at this moment my party
appeared.

Payne wore a swaggering air, and looked now like
Little Lord Fauntleroy gone wrong. He was far too

184 The Lightning Conductor

big a man to notice me, or any of the kindly, simple
people who had been admiring the car, and came up
with us, talking his loudest to Aunt Mary. He almost
elbowed me aside, and got into the driver's seat as a
matter of course. Perhaps he had looked upon the
rich wine of the country when it was red, though
I didn't think of that at the time, and attributed
his exaggerated insolence to natural cussedness of
soul.

"We swept away from the hotel with a curve, which
isn't a line of beauty for a motor-car, and as we left
the town Jimmy's conception of his part as driver
became so eccentric that Miss Randolph looked
worried — that is, her pretty shoulders stiffened them-
selves; I couldn't often see her face — and Aunt Mary
more than once gave vent to a frightened squeak.
Once, in her extremity as we shaved the wheel of
a passing cart, she unbent so far as to throw an
appealing glance at me. But I sat in stony silence
with crossed arms, looking oblivious to all that went
on and somewhat resembling, I flattered myself,
portraits of Napoleon beholding the burning of
Moscow.

On the high road Jimmy began to recover his form
— if it be worth the name — but, as if to show that he
was all right, and never had been otherwise, he put
the car at its quickest pace, which was so far from
safe on a road dotted with carts that I began to
expect trouble; and if it. hadn't been for Miss Ran-
dolph, to see my expectation fulfilled would have
pleased the baser part of me. Once or twice a cart-
load of peasants scowled savagely at us as we rushed

The Lightning Conductor 185

past on our headlong career, and at length I had the
satisfaction of hearing Miss Randolph rather stiffly
suggest that Jimmy should moderate the pace. He
obeyed with a laugh, which he meant to be recklessly
brave, yet indulgent to the weaknesses of women;
but in my ears it only sounded silly. At this moment
a two-wheeled cart with five peasants in it — three
men and two women — came in sight.

As soon as they saw us one of the men — a big,
black-browed fellow — held up his hand imperatively
in warning. Another fine, muscular chap jumped
down and ran to the horse's head. Anyone with
a grain of sense or consideration, on seeing these
signals, would have slowed down, and if necessary
have stopped the engine altogether; but though I
heard Miss Randolph beg him to go slow, Sherlock-
Fauntleroy held right on at a good twenty-five miles
an hour.

In a moment or two we had come level with the
cart, and the horse bolted. The man leading it was
thrown violently to the ground, and the cart went
over him. Luckily he tucked in his head and drew
up his feet, or he would have been shockingly
hurt, perhaps killed. He lay a moment or two, half
stunned with the shock, while the horse galloped
away, dragging after him the swaying cart, the two
women screaming at the top of their voices. The
man driving managed to pull up the frightened
animals some way down the road, and the people
in the cart scrambled out to help their fallen friend,
who meanwhile had picked himself up, and pale
with fright and passion, blood streaming down his

1 86 The Lightning Conductor

face, was limping after the car gesticulating vio-
lently.

Payne had not turned his head, and the moment
that a startled "Oh!" from Miss Randolph told him
there had been an accident he put on speed, clearly
with the intention of avoiding a row. The injured
man stooped to pick up a stone. At the same instant
Miss Randolph, in her most imperious manner (and
she can be imperious), commanded Payne to stop
instantly and go back. " But we shall have the whole
pack of them on us like wolves, " he objected. "Go
back!'1 she repeated, stamping her little foot. "I
svon't hurt a man and drive away. " Suddenly Payne
pulled up, and putting in the reverse, we ran slowly
into the midst of the horde of angry peasants, swollen
now by many others who had been passing along the
crowded road.

As we backed into that sea of scowling faces I
thought of the various revolutions France has seen.
It was like stirring up a wasps' nest. Everyone was
yelling at once. In the front rank stood the man
who had been knocked down, his trousers cut to
tatters. He had lashed himself into such a fury that
he had become almost incoherent, and the flood of
speech which rushed from his white lips was more
like the yells of an animal than the ordered utterance
of a human being. By his side were the two women
who had been in the cart, both sobbbing and scream-
ing, while everyone else in the angry mob shouted
simultaneously. Aunt Mary went very pale; Payne
looked upon his handiwork with a sulky grin; but
Miss Randolph took the business in hand with the

The Lightning Conductor 187

greatest pluck. She had whisked off her veil and
faced the people boldly, her grey eyes meeting theirs,
her face white, save for a bright pink spot on either
cheek. At sight of her beauty the clamour died
down, and in the lull she spoke to the man who had
been thrown under the horse.

"I am very sorry you are hurt," she said, "and
shall be pleased to give you something to buy your-
self new clothes. Are you injured anywhere? "

At the sound of her correct but foreign-sounding
French someone in the crowd shouted out, "A bas les
Anglais!" The girl drew herself up proudly and
looked in the direction of the voice. She didn't try
to excuse herself by denying England and claiming
a nationality more popular in France, and I loved her
more than ever for this reticence.

" Pay!" shouted the man who had been hurt, with
one hand wiping a trickle of blood out of his eye,
with the other thumping the mud-guard of the car.
"Of course you shall pay. God only knows what
injuries I have received. Masette ! I am ail one ache.
Ah, you pay well, or you do not go on!" He pressed
closer to the car, and his friends closed in around
him.

"Pay them, Molly! pay anything they ask!''
quavered Aunt Mary, "or they r^iU kill us! Oh, I
always knew something like this was bound to hap-
pen! What a fool I was to leave my peaceful
home and come to a country of tbieves and mur-
derers!"

"Don't be frightened, Aunt Mar}-,'' said the girL
with more patience for her relative's garrulous coir>-

1 88 The Lightning Conductor

plaints than I had. Then she turned to me. " Brown,
is that man much hurt? " she asked briskly.

" No," I replied. " He is merely scratched, and
no doubt bruised. If he had any bones broken, any
internal injury or severe strain, he couldn't rage
about like a mad bull."

"Still, it was our fault," she said. "We ought to
have stopped. His clothes are torn. How much
ought we to pay?"

"Nothing at all," said Sherlock. "Don't you let
yourself be blackmailed."

She didn't answer or look in his direction, thus
emphasising the fact that she had asked her question
of me, not of him.

"Fifty francs would be generous," I said, "to buy
the fellow a new suit of clothes and pay for a bot-
tle of liniment. With that to-morrow he would be
thanking his stars for the accident. But as Mr. Payne
was driving, hadn't you better let him talk to them?
It isn't right that two men should stand by and let
the burden fall on a lady."

"You speak to them, Brown; I give you carte
blanche," said she, and we faced the mob together.

"If you threaten us," I said, "you shall have
nothing. We were going fast, but your horse is badly
broken, and is more of a danger on the road than an
automobile. If you behave yourself and tell your
friends to do likewise, this lady wishes to give you
fifty francs to buy new clothes in place of those which
have suffered in this accident. But we don't intend
to be bullied."

"Fifty francs!" shrieked the man. "Fifty francs

The Lightning Conductor 189

for a man's life ! Bah! You aristocrats! Five hun-
dred francs; not a sou less, or you do not stir from
this place. Fifty francs! Mazette!"

"You are talking nonsense, and you know it," said
I roughly. "Stand out of our way, or we will send
for the police."

Now this was bluff, for the last thing to be desired
was the presence of the police. I had been careful
to get in Paris the necessary permis de conduire from
the Department of Mines, without which it is illegal
to drive a motor vehicle of any sort in France. But
I had heard Payne boasting to Miss Randolph that
he never bothered himself about a lot of useless red
tape; it was only milksops and amateurs who did
that. I, as Brown, had kept "my master's" papers,
but it would do more harm than good to our cause,
should it come to an investigation, if I attempted to
pass over my permit to Payne. Were the police to
appear on the scene their first demand would be for
papers, and if the man who had been driving were
unable to produce any, not all our just complaints of
the peasants' unlawful threats would help us. Payne
would be liable to arrest and imprisonment ; not only
would he be heavily fined, but we should all be de-
tained, perhaps for weeks; and as French magistrates
have as strong a prejudice against the automobile as
their English brothers, especially when the offender
is a foreigner, it might go hard with everyone con-
cerned. This would be a dismal interruption of our
tour, and if I hadn't felt sure that the enemy would
be in as great a funk of the police as we were, I
wouldn't have ventured on so bold a bluff. I trem-

190 The Lightning Conductor

bled internally for an instant as to its success, but as
usual in life and poker, it paid.

"No, you don't!" shouted not the one peasant,
but many in chorus, as unlike the merry peasant-
chorus of light opera as you can imagine. " We won't
have the police. We attend to this affair ourselves."

And it began to look as if they meant to. " Give
the five hundred francs, or you will be sorry!" they
yelled, and again, in a second, they were all surging
round us, threatening with their fists, snatching out
their pocket-knives, and I saw things were getting
hot. A French crowd barks a good deal before it
bites, but this one had come to the biting stage.
We were far from town and the police, even if the
latter wouldn't have done us more harm than good.
Here we had Miss Randolph and Miss Kedison. If
Payne were as useless as I judged him, I was one
man against forty.

The two ladies were still on the car. Payne had
got off at first, but had slipped back when things
began to be lively. I alone was on the ground, close
to the bonnet, so that if needful I could protect the
motor and Miss Randolph at the same time.

The crowd consulted an instant, then stampeded
the car. Aunt Mary shrieked, and threw out her
purse, as if she flung a live lamb to hungry wolves.
The motor was going still, but to charge into the
crowd might mean killing a dozen wretched peasants.
It was out of the question, but something must be
done, and now was the moment for doing it. One
fellow tried to snatch a sable rug off Miss Kedison 's
knees; I struck his hand away, and sent him stagger-

The Lightning Conductor 191

ing. Then I yelled to Payne to get into the wnneau.
There was no more pride left in him than in a rag,
and he crawled over, like a dog. Meanwhile, I'd
ma.de up my mind what to do, and was going to try
an experiment as our best chance to get out of the
town without bloodshed.

I knew that a union which held the exhaust pipe
in place on the silencer had been working loose. I
grabbed a spanner out of the tool-box, and elbowing
my way along the side of the car again, with two
turns of the spanner loosened the union, pushed
forward the throttle-lever in the steering-post, and
gave the motor all its gas.

The thing was done in a quarter the time it's taken
me to write of it, and you can guess the effect.
Bang! bang! came a succession of explosions quick
and pitiless as a Maxim gun. Those peasants gave-
way like wheat before the scythe. I don't doubt
they thought they were shot and on the way to-
kingdom come; and before they'd time to find out
their mistake I was up on the step, had seized the
steering-wheel, and started the car. "We were on a
slight decline, and the good steed bounded forward
at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. An instant later
I slipped in the fourth, and we were going forty-five.

When the enemy saw how they'd been tricked,
which they did in about six seconds, they were after
us with a howl. A shower of stones fell harmlessly
on the road behind us, angry yells were drowned in
the hideous noise of the exhaust. We could afford
to laugh at the thought of pursuit. But there was
another side to the story. Now that there was no-

192 The Lightning Conductor

one on the spot to complain of their threats of
violence, they could safely apply to the police and
make a bold stroke for vengeance, just as we had for
escape. However, there was no use in thinking of
that for the moment; I had done the best I could
and must go on doing it. No normal tympanum
could stand the racket of the exhaust for long, and
Miss Randolph and Miss Kedison were sitting with
their hands over their ears, the lower part of Aunt
Mary's face under her mask expressing a comical
horror. I caught sight of her visage when I stopped
the car (which I did as soon as we were beyond
danger of pursuit) to fasten up the silencer again;
and it was all I could do not to laugh.

The fastening-up business was an affair of two or
three minutes, and at first the three sat in shocked
silence, their heads dazed by the late ear-splitting
din. Then, the cool peace of welcome silence was
broken by Mr. Payne. " I consider," he said stiffly
to Miss Randolph, "that your mlcanicien has be-
haved with unwarrantable insolence in ordering
me "

"And I consider that he saved the situation," cut
in the micanicien's mistress.

"I acted for what I thought the best, miss; there
wasn't much time to decide," said I, with a sleek
humility which I assume on occasions. " If I have
given offence, I am sorry," I went on, looking at her
and not at Payne.

"You haven't given offence," she said. "I am
sure Mr. Payne, when he comes to reflect, will see
that you did yeoman's service. But what is to

The Lightning Conductor 193

happen now? I suppose we're not safe from trouble
yet, and we don't deserve to be."

I thought it rather sporting of her to say "we,"
when all the bother was due to the conceit and cock-
sureness of one person.

"No, miss, we don't deserve to be, if you'll excuse
the liberty," I meekly replied. "We had no business
charging along a crowded road the way we did. I'm
sure, until to-day, we've never had anything but
courtesy from people of all classes. It isn't often
French peasants misbehave themselves, and to-day
most of the wrong was on our side, though it's true
that their horse was skittish; and being market-day,
I daresay they'd taken a little more red wine than
was good for them. The wine of this country is apt
to go to the head."

I spoke to Miss Randolph, but at Jimmy, especially
when I gave that dig about the wine. I finished my
tirade and my work on the silencer at the same
time, and it was then that my triumph came. In-
stead of getting back on the car, I stood still in the
road.

" What are you waiting for? " asked Miss Randolph.

"For Mr. Payne to take his place in the driver's
seat," said I.

At this he half jumped up in the tonneau, but Miss
Randolph hurriedly exclaimed, "Oh, I think you
had better drive for a while, Brown. I want to talk
to you, and ask you what to do, and what will happen
next." Little Lord Fauntleroy, with every Sher-
lockian characteristic temporarily obliterated, sat
down again in the tonneau pouting.

194 The Lightning Conductor

We had not wasted five minutes, and now w«
sprang forward at a good speed for Carcassonne.

"What will happen next," I said, answering Miss
Randolph's question, "may be this. If the peasants
are angry enough to take the trouble and risk, all
they have to do is to go to the police-station in the
nearest village and give information against us, when a
wire with a description of us and the car will raise the
whole country so that we shall not be safe anywhere."

"Oh, my gracious!" the poor child exclaimed.
"What are we to do? Aunt Mary and I have other
hats and jackets and things in our car-luggage.
Couldn't we change, so as to look quite different,
and buy a lot of — of Aspinall, or something in the
next village before they've had time to give the
alarm, and paint the poor car a bright scarlet ? Then
we should get through and no one would know."

I couldn't help laughing, though really her sug-
gestion wasn't so fantastic as it may sound, for I
know a man who did that very trick in somewhat
similar circumstances; but her earnestness combined
with the childlike guile on her face was comic.

" It would be too long a job to paint the car before
we could be spotted," I said. "I think we must
just hope for the best, and show a bold face. I
shouldn't be surprised if we'd get through all right
somehow. Perhaps, if there was much money in
your aunt's purse, miss, the peasants would prefer
keeping their mouths shut and sticking to that than
mixing themselves up with the police and perhaps
losing what they might have had, like the dog with
his meat in the fable."

The Lightning Conductor 195

"There were about a hundred francs in my purse,"
announced Aunt Mary.

" If they do catch us, what then? " the girl asked.

I explained the state of the case as I had argued
it out to myself.

" Oh, well," sighed Miss Randolph, " I suppose we
can't do better than take your advice, but this isn't
a nice adventure. I do hate feeling guilty — like an
escaping criminal, with every hand against me.
And I loathe suspense; I always want to know the
worst. When shall we be sure what the peasants
have made up their minds to do?"

"Well," I said, "in less than an hour, if all goes
well, we ought to be at the octroi station outside
Carcassonne, and if we are ' wanted' by the police we
shall know it fast enough, because they will — er —
try to stop us there."

"Then I hope all won't go well," moaned Miss
Randolph. She who had been so brave when forty
peasants threatened us with words, stones, and even
knives, was crushed under the vague menace of the
law. "If only we could arrive after dark we might
flash through before the octroi people knew. Let's
arrive after dark," she exclaimed eagerly. "It's
getting on towards four now. Let's stop — since
we've been perfectly certain for ages that no one was
attempting to follow us — and — and deliberately have
tea by the roadside. If we do that we can easily
pass the time, so as not to arrive at the octroi until
half-past five, when it will be dark. It's moonlight,
but the moon doesn't rise now till six or after."

"We could do that certainly," I said, "and we

196 The Lightning Conductor

might get through without being nabbed. If we
succeed, we might rush on through Carcassonne,
instead of stopping there to-night; for the farther
away we get and the more towns we can say we've
passed through without being detained, the better
for our chances of ultimate escape."

" But I don't want to miss Carcassonne," she ob-
jected. "You've told me so much about the place
that I've been looking forward to it more than to
almost anything else."

So had I, if the truth were known, but I had looked
forward to visiting Carcassonne with her before I
had "drunk and seen the spider." In other words,
before Mr. Payne had joined our party. However,
I couldn't bear to have her disappointed, for his fault>
too; besides, I'm vain enough to like hearing from
her lips the flattering words, " Brown, you are so
•resourceful!" Therefore I stirred up my brains in
the effort to be resourceful now.

"We might hide the car in Carcassonne if we could
once get in," I mysteriously suggested; "then you
could steal up on foot to the citt by moonlight, and
when you'd had your fill of sight-seeing steal back to
the car again and make a rush for it."

"Splendid!" cried Miss Randolph, clapping her
hands. Behold, I had made a hit!

The car was stopped, the tea-basket got out, and
who so indispensable as the late despised Brown?
Brown it was who went to a cottage hard by and
procured drinking-water, since, not expecting to stop,
we had come out unprovided. Brown it was who
saved the methylated spirit from upsetting, and

The Lightning Conductor iqj

Brown was rewarded presently with an excellent
cup of tea, into which Miss Randolph had dropped
two lumps of sugar with her own blessed little pink-
tipped fingers. As a matter of fact, in ordinary
circumstances sugar in tea is medicinal to my taste;
but when that angel sat with a lump between her
fingers asking how many I would have, though she
had just let Jimmy Sherlock put in his own, I would
have said half a dozen, if that would have left any
over for her. And if the taste was medicinal, why,
it had a curative effect on my injured feelings. '

Refreshed, invigorated by more than tea, I felt
ready for anything. Darkness was falling, but I
didn't light the lamps. The road was empty, a torch
of dusky red blazing along the west. We started,
going cautiously; our tongues silent, our eyes alert.
By-and-by, from afar off, we caught the twinkle of
low-set, yellow lights. We were coming to the
neighbourhood of the octroi. Luckily it was cold;
the door and windows of the house would certainly
be shut, unless the men were engaged in transacting
business in the road. I now hurriedly explained to
Miss Randolph the exact method I meant to adopt,
and the word was passed round to be "mum. " While
the tea-things were being packed away, a short time
ago, I had well oiled the wheels and chains; the
car moved as silently as a bat, except for the chuff!
chuff! of the motor. About a hundred yards from
the lights I put on speed, and when we had begun
to scud along like a ship with all sails set, I took out
the clutch and let the motor run free. By this time
we were within thirty yards of a building which I

198 The Lightning Conductor

now felt certain was the octroi. The car, which had
been going extremely fast, dashed on, coasting past
the little lighted house by its own impetus. Not a
sound, not a creak of a wheel, not the grating of a
chain.

On we sped for full forty yards past the octroi
before we lost speed, and I had to slip in the clutch.

"Oh, Brown?" breathed my Goddess ecstatically.
Just that, and no more. But if I had been Jack
Winston and asked her to marry me at this moment,
I believe she would have said "yes," in sheer exuber-
ance of grateful bliss.

So far, so good, but we were not yet out of the
wood. "We drove quietly on into the town, expecting
every moment to be challenged for not lighting our
lamps, though we were within our rights, really, dark
as it was, for it was not yet an hour after sunset.
But nothing happened ; not even a dog barked. We
crossed the high bridge spanning the Aude, and the
old ciU, which we had come to see, loomed black
against the dusky sky. No one molested us; no
fiery gendarme leaped from the shadows commanding
us to stop. My small trumps were taking all the
tricks, but I had a big one still in my hand. We
were now — having crossed the bridge and left the new
town behind us — in a comparatively deserted region.

"My idea," I said quietly to Miss Randolph, "is to
drive the car into some dark, back street, far from the
ken of the gendarme. It is six o'clock. People are
sitting down to dinner. That is in our favour.
I Shall, if possible, find a place where the car may
stand for several hours without being remarked,

The Lightning Conductor 199

while your visit is paid to the citi. Here, now, is
the very place!" I broke short my disquisition to
remark; for as I elaborated my plan, driving very
slowly, we had arrived before a dingy mews with
a waggon standing, shafts down, on the cobbles.
I turned in and stopped both car and motor.

"This shelter might have been made for us, " I said,
beginning to find a good deal of pleasure in the
situation. "The only difficulty is" (out with my
big trump) "that of course someone must stay with
the car. It is my place, miss, to do so. But, unfortu-
nately, it is after hours for showing the ramparts, the
interior of the towers, the dungeons, and so on, which
are really the attractions of the wonderful, old restored
mediaeval city. I have been here before. I know
the gardien, and might, if I were in the party, induce
him to make an exception in your favour. Still, as
it is, the best I can do will be to write a note and ask
him to take you through. "

Jimmy laughed, or I should say, chortled. " I should
think a banknote would appeal to the gardien' s intel-
ligence better than any other kind," said he, "and
I will see that he gets it. "

"I advise you not to do that, sir," I remarked
quietly. "The gardien here isn't that sort of man
at all. He would be mortally offended if you tried
to bribe him, and would certainly refuse to do any-
thing for you. "

" I'm sure a letter would be of very little use, " said
Miss Randolph. "I think we must manage to have
you with us somehow, Brown. Couldn't we hire
a man to look after the car? "

2OO The Lightning Conductor

"I shouldn't like to take the risk," said I. "And
remember, miss, we are in hiding. "

"/ don't want to see the old thing, " protested Aunt
Mary. "I've gone through so much to-day I feel
a thousand years old. I'm not going to climb any
hills or see any sights. I want my dinner. ' '

"I think we'd better get on," advised Sherlock.
"Not much fun poking about in a lot of old ruins in
the dark."

"They're not ruins, and it isn't dark," said Miss
Randolph. "Look at the sky! The moon's coming
up this minute. If you don't want to see the cite,
Jimmy, you might just as well sit here in the car while
the rest of us go. "

"I shall sit with him," announced Aunt Mary.
"And if you must go on this wild goose chase, do
for pity's sake hurry back, or we shall be frozen. "

I began to fear that the scheme would fall through,
with so much against it, but Miss Randolph kept to
her resolution despite the moving picture of her rela-
tive's suffering.

" Oh yes, we will hurry back. We shan't be long, "
she said cheerfully, "we " meaning herself and her
courier mecanicien. "You can't be cold in your furs;
it's very early yet; you had a good tea; and Brown
and I will whisk you off to some dear little village
inn in time for an eight o'clock dinner."

I knew we should do nothing of the kind, but
mine not to reason why, mine but to do or die — with
her.

I daresay, my dear Montie, that even to you
"Carcassonne" expresses nothing in particular. To

The Lightning Conductor 201

those who have been there the name must, I think,
always bring with it an imperishable recollection.
Carcassonne is one of the unique places of the world.
Years ago — as far back as the Romans, probably
much further — there was a fortress on this hill, which
commanded one of the chief roads into Spain. After-
wards it was used by the Visigoths, and in the Middle
Ages it reached its highest importance under St. Louis.
Then gradually it sank again into insignificance, and
early last century there was a proposal that the
ruins should be destroyed. By this time hardly
anyone lived in the old city on the hill, a new and
flourishing modern town (laid out in parallelograms)
having sprung up in the plain. The demolition
of the ancient ruins was prevented by one Cros-
Mayrevieille, a native of Carcassonne, who succeeded
in whipping up such enthusiasm on behalf of his
birthplace that the city was made into a monument
historique, and money was granted for its complete
reconstruction by Viollet le Due. A large sum has
been spent, great works have been carried out, and
the result is one of the most extraordinary feats of
restoration in the history of the world.

From afar off this city upon a hill makes a vivid
appeal to the imagination. Its great assemblage of
towers, walls, and battlements, rising clear-cut and
majestic against the sky, suggests at the first glimpse
one of those imaginary mediaeval cities that Dor6
loved to draw as illustrations to the Conies Drola-
tiques. So extraordinary is the apparition of this
ancient, silent, fortified city existing in the midst of
the railway epoch that one is tempted to think it

202 The Lightning Conductor

a mirage, some strange trick of the senses, which, on
rubbing the eyes, must disappear. And the nearer
one draws, the more vivid does this impression
become. Everything perfect, marvellously perfect,
yet with no jarring hint of newness. It is well-nigh
impossible at any time to tell where the original
structure ends and where Viollet le Due's restoration
begins, and on what a grand scale it all is.

By moonlight the effect was really glorious. My
Goddess and I walked over a drawbridge and entered
the silent, grass-grown streets of the old, old city,
where quaint and ancient houses, given up now to
the poor, huddle under the protecting walls of the
great fortress. We were in a perfect medieval city,
just as it existed in the time of the Crusades. In
thus exactly realising the life of a garrisoned fortress
of those stirring days, I found much the same dra-
matic interest I feel on stepping into the silent
streets of Pompeii, where the ghosts seem more real
than I.

We stopped at the house of the gardien, and I
made an excuse for leaving Miss Randolph at a
little distance, as I talked to him, reminded him of
my last visit, and begged that, as a favour, he would
show us about, although it was now "after hours."
He is a very good fellow, courteous and intelligent,
speaking with the noticeably distinct enunciation
which seems to be the mark of all these guardians
of monuments historiques in France; and when he
understood that there was a lady in the case, he
readily consented to oblige, though I suspect he left
his supper in the midst. He took off his cap to

The Lightning Conductor 203

Miss Randolph's beauty, etherealised by the moon's
magic, and we all three started on our expedition.
We were conducted into huge, round towers and
out upon lofty, commanding battlements, whence we
could gaze through a haze of moonlight over a great
sweep of country, with here and there the sparkle
of a winding river, like a diamond necklace flung
down carelessly on a purple cushion. Our guide
conscientiously pointed out the stations of the
sentries and the guards, the disposition of the towers
for mutual defence (each a bowshot from the other),
the sally-ports, the secret passages communicating
with underground tunnels for revictualling the city
in time of siege; and so realistic were our surround-
ings that I fancied Miss Randolph once or twice
actually caught herself listening in vain for the
tramp of mailed feet, the hoarse word of command.
At all events, I'm sure she forgot for the time being
all about Aunt Mary and Jimmy Payne waiting in
the car, and I didn't think it incumbent upon me
to remind her of their existence or necessities. We
lingered long enough in the splendid region of towers,
battlements, and ramparts to do them full justice.
Then, when I had slipped something of no impor-
tance into the gardien's hand, we reluctantly de-
parted, often looking back as we went down the
hill. As we left the old city we did not leave it
alone. A group of young men and women of a
humble class were hurrying down just before us on
their way to the new town. We were so near that
we couldn't help overhearing their eager talk of
a spectacle they were on their way to see, and judg-

204 The Lightning Conductor

ing from the fragments we caught, this was to be
a kind of Passion Play. Although I had been at
Carcassonne before, I didn't know that such a thing
existed in France, or, indeed, outside Oberammergau
and a few villages in the Tyrol. Miss Randolph
questioned me about it, but I could tell her nothing,
and she exclaimed rather shamefacedly, "Oh, how
I should love to go! "

"Would you let me take you there, just to look on
for a few minutes, miss? " I doubtfully asked.

" I should like it above anything," said she. " Only
— we've already kept those poor people waiting too
long, I'm afraid."

"This needn't keep them very much longer," said
I, "and it may be the last chance you will ever have
of seeing such a thing."

"Oh, well, I can't resist," she cried. "Well go—
and I'll take the scolding afterwards."

We did go, following our leaders until we came
to a good-sized booth with a crowd round it. The
admission was twopence each, but the best seats cost
a franc. We went in and found ourselves in a long,
canvas room, with sloping seats and a small stage at
one end lighted by oil lamps.

The place was dreadfully hot, and smelled strongly
of humanity. Presently a bell rang; there was
solemn music on a tinkling piano and a young
actor, bare-faced and dressed in a white classical
dress, took his place near the stage, beginning to
recite in a clear, sympathetic voice. He was the
choragus, explaining to us what was to happen in.
the play. The curtain went up, to reveal a tableau

The Lightning Conductor 205

of Adam and Eve in very palpable flesh tights, with
garlands of fig leaves festooned about their bodies.

Adam, with an elaborate false beard, slept under
a tree. Then to the accompaniment of the choragus'
explanation a mechanical snake appeared in the
branches with an apple in its mouth. An unseen
person off the stage made the snake twist and writhe.
Eve put out her hand, took the apple, and ate a bit*
Adam waking, she pointed to the tree and to the fruit,
offering him a piece. He demurred in pantomime,
but accepted and swallowed what was left of the
apple. Instantly there appeared at the wing an
angel with a long, flaxen wig, who threatened the
guilty pair with a tinsel sword. They cowered, and
then shading their eyes with their hands, were walk-
ing sadly away when the curtain fell. It was tableau
number one, showing the fall of man.

The audience on the whole received the exhibition
with devotional reverence, but a knot of young men
openly tittered and jeered, commenting satirically
upon the deficiencies in the stage management.
Then, with more music, began the scenes from the
New Testament. One was rather pretty, introducing
the woman at the well, Christ being impersonated by
a sweet-faced young man in white, with a light brown
wig and beard. The girl who played the Virgin was
not more than twenty, and had a serene prettiness,
with an air of grave modesty, which were very at-
tractive. She wore her own long hair falling like a
mantle over her dark dress as far down as the knees.

Each scene lasted perhaps five minutes, the char-
acters on the stage speaking no word, but opening

206 The Lightning Conductor

their mouths and moving their bodies in time with
the recitation of the choragus. We had the betrayal
in the garden, the trial before Pilate, the scourging,
the crucifixion, and the resurrection, all given with
feeling and surprising dignity, and in the crucifixion
scene, with pathos. Most of the women in the
audience were in tears, their compassion spending
itself noticeably more upon the Virgin's sorrow than
upon her Son's agony; and all through the repre'
sentation the same irreverent knot of scoffers con-
tinued to laugh, to whistle, to mimic. From many
parts of the tent there were indignant cries of
"Shame!" and "Silence!" but the disturbers went
on to the end, quite regardless of good taste and the
pious feelings of the majority.

I heard whispers which informed us that this
company of players had no repertoire; such a thing
they would have considered sacrilegious, but they
travelled all over France in caravans, carrying their
own scenery and costumes. We dared not stay till
the very end of the performance, but had to get up
and steal quietly out, with Aunt Mary heavy on our
consciences.

I believe poor little Miss Randolph really was
afraid of that scolding she had prophesied. But
behold, vice was its own reward, and the enemy was
delivered into our hands. We arrived at the mews,
and there was the car; but there was not Aunt Mary
nor yet Sherlock-Fauntleroy. In their place, curled
up in the tonneau, reclined a callow French youth,
comfortably snoozing, with his coat- collar turned up
to his ears. We roused him, learned that he had

The Lightning Conductor 207

been caught en passant and hired at the rate of two
francs an hour to await the return of a lady and
gentleman; also that he had been in his present
position for nearly an hour. One lady and gentle-
man seemed to his mind as good as another, for when
offered a five-franc piece he showed no hesitation in
delivering up his charge to us, although, for all he
could tell, we might have been the rankest of rank
impostors. After the departure of this faithless
guardian, Miss Randolph and I sat enthroned in the
car for some twenty minutes before Aunt Mary and
Jimmy came speeding round the corner of the mews.
They brought with them an atmosphere of warmth
and good cheer, and at first sniff it was evident that
they had dined where dining in both solid and liquid
branches was a fine art.

In my part of servant I was not "on" in the
ensuing comedy; but I listened "in the wings," and
chuckled inwardly. Well did Miss Randolph fill the
r61e of injured virtue which she had taken up at such
short notice. Her surprise that Aunt Mary and
jimmy could have been capable of betraying her
trust in them, that they should have gone off and
left a valuable car, which wasn't even hers, to the
tender mercies of a stupid little boy, a perfect
stranger, was bravely done. It was represented as
a miracle that the Napier and everything in it had
not been stolen during their absence; and the good
dinner the culprits had enjoyed at the neighbouring
hotel could not fortify them against the blighting
sense of their own depravity so vividly brought home.

Not a reproach for us ; all the wind had been taken

2o8 The Lightning Conductor

out of their sails. A sadder and wiser Jimmy and
Aunt Mary meekly allowed themselves to be driven
on through the cold moonlight, with distant gleams
of towered towns, to Narbonne, where I am writing
to you, after having dined and cleaned the car.
Our hotel is not an ideal one; yet on my hard pillow
my head, I ween, will lie easier than on a downy one
last night. We arrived late, and will leave early,
to lessen the chances of being pounced upon by the
clutches of the law. But I begin to hope that, after
all, those peasants decided to let well alone, and that
we shall escape scatheless.

When I was a little boy we used to have honey
in red-brown earthenware pots labelled ''Finest
Narbonne Honey," and for years the place figured
in my imagination as a smiling region of brilliant
flowers. But the disillusioning reality is a dusty,
rather noisy, very commercial town, paved with
stones the most abominable; and between Carcas-
sonne and here the roads grow more abominable
with every kilometre. I am tired, but not unhappy;
and so, good night.

Your fraudulent friend,

BROWN-WINSTON.

JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

HOTEL DU LOUVRE, MARSEILLES,

December 18.
My dear Montie,

We have just been passing through some of
the most interesting parts of France, therefore in the
world, and I have derived a certain rarefied enjoy-
ment from it all, as I should have been only half a
man not to do. But Brown stock has gone down a
little since Carcassonne, why, I know not, though I
suspect; and there is depression, if not panic in the
market. Jimmy, having made his peace and prom-
ised caution, has again been promoted to the post of
driver, and from the Jehu point of view I must
confess that during a large part of the journey he
has covered himself with as much credit as dust.
This is saying a good deal, for, owing to the slight
rainfalls in these southern departments, the roads are
often buried inches deep under a coating of grey,
pungent dust, enveloping all passing vehicles in a
noisome cloud. They have also, set in their surface
at irregular intervals, large pans or dishes with per-
pendicular walls from an inch to three inches in
depth. These dishes being concealed by the all-
pervading dust, it is impossible — at least for a Jimmy

209

210 The Lightning Conductor

Payne — to know where they are until the wheels
bump into them. Sometimes one of our wheels
would drop in, sometimes all four. You may imagine
the strain of this sort of work upon the tyres, frame,
and springs. But in a whole day's run of a hundred
and thirty miles we punctured only one tyre, which I
mended in fifteen minutes.

Beziers, seen from a distance, set strikingly upon a
hill, looked an imposing town, but turned out to be
an ordinary and dirty place when we came to ascend
its long, winding streets. Beyond, we ran for a while
along the edge of a great lagoon, and knew, though
we could not see it, that the Mediterranean lay close
at our right hand.

At Montpellier we did not stop, and I delivered
no lecture on the subject of the gorgeous, all-conquer-
ing Duchess, as I might have been tempted to do if
we'd had no addition to our party. It's a large, bright,
and stately town, very liveable-looking; but nothing
was said about lingering, though there are some
things worth seeing. We had an impressive en-
trance into the ancient city of Nimes, running in by
early moonlight, across a great, open plain, under a
spacious, purpling dome of sky, the sun dying in
carmine behind us, the evening star a big, flashing
diamond in the moon-paled east. The old Roman
amphitheatre stood up darkly and nobly in the silver
twilight; but we passed on to our hotel, the pro-
gramme evidently being to satisfy the senses at the
expense of the soul. They do one very well at the
hotel in Nimes, but I looked forward hopefully to a
request to play courier among the sights of the dear

The Lightning Conductor 211

old town next morning. It did not come, however.
The two ladies went forth with Jimmy, and as I saw
them go I could but acknowledge my rival to be a
personable fellow. Sherlock Holmes and Little Lord
Fauntleroy were both personable fellows in their
way, and it is useless to deny Jimmy's possession of
the picked attributes of each.

For some reason the word seems to have gone
forth that we are to hurry on to Cannes. In the
circumstances I am inclined to change my mind,
and instead of wishing my dear mother to have
departed before our arrival, I'm not sure it wouldn't
be wiser to hope that she'll still be there. Miss
Randolph "hasn't decided what she'll do after reach-
ing the Riviera." I can't help feeling that Jimmy
Sherlock has succeeded in getting in some deadly
work of a mysterious nature. It's on the cards that
I may find at Cannes or Nice that the trip is fin-
ished, and Brown is finished too. Then, as I can't
and won't part from my Goddess without a Titanic
struggle, I might find it convenient to tell my mother
all, throw myself on her mercy, and get her to inter-
cede with Miss Randolph for me. You may argue
that her views regarding the fair Barrow are likely to
militate against co-operation in this new direction;
but I can be eloquent on occasion, and even a mother
must see that a Barrow is nothing beside a Goddess.

Altogether, I am nervous. The future looks
wobbly, and it is not a pleasant sensation to feel
that one is being secretly undermined. Jimmy had
better look out, though. The first shadow of proof
I get that he's breaking his half of the bargain he

212 The Lightning Conductor

shall learn that even a chauffeur will turn. And I
look upon Cannes, somehow, as the turning-point in
more senses of the word than one.

But to our muttons. No pleasant dallying for me
in beautiful old Nimes or Aries, either one of which
would repay weeks of lingering. What dallying
there was, Jimmy got — confound him! — and my
only joy was in his hatred of early rising. They
had him up at an unearthly hour for a glimpse of
the amphitheatre and the Maison Carree at Nimes,
and by nine we were on the road to Aries, Payne
driving with creditable caution. We crossed the
Rhone and completed the eighteen flat miles in little
more than thirty minutes. When we arrived at the
end of this time in the astonishing little town of
Aries, halting in a diminutive square with two great
pillars of granite and a superb Corinthian pediment
(dating from Roman occupation) built into the walls
of modern houses, Miss Randolph announced that
they would walk about for half an hour and look at
the antiquities. "Half an hour!" I couldn't help
echoing; "why, Aries is one of the most interesting
places in France. It is an open-air museum."

" I know," said she, looking up at me with an odd
expression which I would have given many a bright
sovereign for the skill to read. "But maybe I shall
have a chance to see it some other time, and the
others don't care much for antiquities or architecture.
We really must hurry as fast as possible to Cannes."

Now, why — why? What is to happen at Cannes?
Is Jimmy's loathly hand in this? Or — blessed
thought! — is all sight-seeing for her, as well as for

The Lightning Conductor 213

me, poisoned by his society? Is she regretting her
rash generosity in promising to carry him to the
Riviera (to say nothing of Lord Lane!) and is she
panting to rid herself of him? I daren't hope it.
But write me your deduction. Perhaps in your
enforced inaction at Davos it may amuse you to
piece together a theory and account for the actions
of certain persons in France, whom possibly you
know better than if you had ever met them.

While the three went off to bolt in one bite such
delicate morsels as the sculptured porch of the
cathedral of St. Trophinus and the Roman theatre
I gloomily played Casabianca by the car, Ixion at
the wheel, or what you will. I waited their return
before the hotel, and no sooner did they come back,
at the end of their stingy half-hour, than we started,
taking the road across the great plain of La Crau
towards Salon.

A most extraordinary region that plain of La
Crau. It is as flat as a pancake, only far away to the
north one sees a range of brown, stony mountains.
Formerly it was a forbidding, stony desert, the
dumping-place for every pebble and boulder brought
down by the Rhone and the Durance. But all over
the vast wilderness there has been carried out a
wonderful system of irrigation, and now it yields
sweet herbage for sheep, while figs, mulberries, and
cypresses are dotted in green oases. The surface of
the land is thickly veined with the beneficent little
canals, carrying life-giving water from the Canal de
Craponne, which has its origin at La Roque, on the
Durance.

214 The Lightning Conductor

Across this vast plain we raced towards Salon,
along a road straight as if drawn by a ruler, and
bordered by small poplars standing shoulder to
shoulder like trees in a child's box of toys. We
met no other vehicles; we seemed to have the world
to ourselves; but once, far along the road, we spied
a black dot which seemed to come towards us with
incredible speed, growing larger as it came. In less
time than it takes to write we saw that it was an
enormous racing automobile, probably undergoing
a test of speed. We were running at our own highest
pace, perhaps forty-five miles an hour; the thing
approaching us was coming at seventy or more. Yoti
may imagine the rush of air as we passed each other.
One glimpse we had of a masked automobilist like
a figure of death in an Albert Durer cartoon, or the
familiar of a Vehmgericht, and then we were gasping
in the vortex of air caused by the speed of the gigantic
car. Almost before we could turn our heads it was
a black dot again on the horizon. Perhaps it was the
great Fournier himself.

Beyond Salon the road becomes interestingly
accidentle. One climbs among the mountains which
fold Marseilles in their encircling arms, and has
spacious views over the great Etang de Berre to
the glittering Mediterranean. The Napier crested
the hills without faltering, and from the top we had
a long run down (over bad pavt at the last) into the
lively, noisy streets of gay Marseilles, Payne guiding
the car very decently over intricate tram lines, finally
turning across the pavement to circle into the white,
airy court of a large hotel. When my passengers

The Lightning Conductor 215

had got down I drove the car to a garage and went
quietly off to another hotel, where, warned by past
experience at Pau, I entered myself in the register
modestly as James Brown.

Now I shall hurl at your devoted and friendly
head this enormous letter, and presently shall begin
another to tell of the Further Adventures on the
Riviera of

Your much-enduring Friend,

The AMATEUR CHAUFFEUR.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

GRAND HOTEL, TOULON,
December 20.

My Wingless Angel,

It's lucky your poor dear hair is getting con-
spicuous by its absence, or it would stand up on
end, I don't doubt, when you read a few lines farther.
So, you see, even baldness is a blessing in disguise.

I won't keep you in suspense. The worst shall
come first; after all that's happened I don't mind
such a little thing as an anticlimax in writing to my
indulgent and uncritical Dad.

Now for it.

I have deserted Aunt Mary and Jimmy Payne in
a gorge. I am alone in a hotel — with Brown. Yet
I ask you to suspend judgment; I have not exactly
eloped.

It is all Jimmy Payne's fault.

I wired you yesterday from Marseilles, because
I hadn't written since my second letter from Pau,
when I told you how Aunt Mary had persuaded me
that it would be perfectly caddish not to invite
Jimmy to drive with us to the Riviera, as his car
was there and he was going that way. I felt in my
bones to an almost rheumatic extent that to ask him
would be a big mistake; still, in a weak moment I

The Lightning Conductor 217

consented, when Jimmy had been particularly nice
and had just paid you a whole heap of compliments,
I lay awake nearly all night afterwards, thinking
whether 'twere nobler in the mind of Molly to hurt
Brown's feelings or Jimmy's, since injury must be
dealt to one. Finally, I tossed up for it in the sanctity
of my chamber. Heads, Brown drives; tails, Jimmy;
and it was tails. Well, I'd vowed that should settle
it, so I wouldn't go back on myself; and, anyhow,
Jimmy was the guest, so that French copper had the
rights of it. I did my best to make all straight with
the Lightning Conductor, who behaved like the trump
he is.

Jimmy had spared no pains or expense in ad-
vertising himself as an expert driver, nevertheless I
knew him well enough not to be surprised at finding
out he didn't know much more than I did. I soon
saw that, though the first day everything went well
enough. The second day he nearly landed us in a
dreadful scrape with some peasants, but since Brown
brought us safely through, I won't tell tales out of
school, especially as the tables were rather turned
on the poor fellow at Carcassonne — the most splendid
place. I send you with this a little book all about it,
full of pictures, and you are to be sure to read it.
I was rather sorry for Jimmy afterwards; he was
so humble, and besides, he took a cold in his head
waiting in the car while I went sight-seeing. He
promised to be very prudent if I would only trust
him again, and cleverly took my mind off his late
misdeeds by exciting my curiosity. At breakfast
in Narbonne, where we'd unexpectedly stayed the

218 The Lightning Conductor

night, he hinted darkly of most exciting events in
which we were intimately concerned, which would
in all probability take place at Cannes, if we could
only arrive there soon enough. I couldn't get him
to tell me what they were, but I fancy Aunt Mary
is at least partly in his confidence. She wouldn't
betray him, but she assured me that to miss the treat
in store for us would mean lasting regret. And she
was bursting with importance and mystery. Now
I don't believe much in Jimmy's show; nothing of
his ever does come off, except his hat when he drives.
Still, a little of Jimmy's society goes a long way
in the intimate association of a motoring journey;
what it would be in married life I don't know and
don't want to know; and as I too began to think
I shouldn't be sorry to get to the Riviera, I consented
to be whirled through some lovely places, just to
satisfy Aunt Mary and Jimmy's craving for haste,
and lack of love for ancient architecture.

We arrived at Marseilles, Jimmy doing well. I
would see something of the place, for I was true to
my Monte Cristo, and insisted upon having a glimpse
of the Chateau d'If. We got in at night, and stayed
at a delightful hotel. Early in the morning I was
up, and rather than I should take Brown as courier,
Jimmy (who resents Brown) was up early too.
We had breakfast together — for Aunt Mary stayed
in bed — and went out to walk. But it wasn't like
going about with the Lightning Conductor, who
knows everything and has been everywhere before.
We had to inquire our way every minute, and
shouldn't have known which things were worth

The Lightning Conductor 219

seeing if Monsieur Rathgeb, the landlord, hadn't
told us to be sure and go up the hill of Notre Dame
de la Garde for the view; so we went up in a lift, and
it was glorious. Some soldiers marching on a green
boulevard below looked like tiny black-beetles, and
the music of their bugle band came floating faintly
to us like sounds heard through a gramophone.
The He d'lf and all the others were splendid from
there, and I would have liked to stay a long time,
if Jimmy hadn't begun to be tiresome and harangue
me about the confidential way in which I treat Brown.
"Social distinctions," said he didactically, "are the
bulwarks of society." Ha, ha! I couldn't help
laughing — could you in my place? I told him I
thought he would make a fortune as a lecturer, but
lectures weren't much in my line; and I asked if
he'd ever read Ibsen's Pillars of Society, which of
course he hadn't. Then we went down in the lift,
and back to the hotel for Aunt Mary, who naturally
wanted to shop; and by the time she had finished
buying veils and cold cream it was time for lunch,
which we had in one of the most charming restau-
rants I was ever in, on the Corniche Road. I don't
care so very much about good things to eat; but I
do think that oysters, langouste d V Americaine ,
bouillabaisse d la Provenfole, perfectly cooked and
served, and mixed with a heavenly view, may be
something to rave about. Oh, there's a lot to see
and do in Marseilles, I assure you, Dad, though one's
friends never seem to tell you much about it; and it
was three o'clock in the afternoon before I would
consent to be torn away. Of course, so far south

22O The Lightning Conductor

the daylight lingers long; still, we knew we had but
an hour and a half more of it when we started.
There had been a shower of rain while Aunt Mary
and I were packing, and we had not been out of the
hotel many minutes when we had a surprise.

Jimmy was driving along a paved street, slimy
with fresh mud, and confusing with the dash and
clash of electric street cars, which Jimmy is English
enough to call "trams." He tried to pass one on the
off side, but just as he was getting ahead of it another
huge car came whizzing along from the opposite
direction. I didn't say a word. I just "sat tight,"
but I had the queerest feeling in my feet as if I
wanted to jump or do something. It looked as if we
were going to be pinched right between the two, and
I'd have given a good deal if Brown had been at the
helm, for I would have been sure that somehow he'd
contrive to get us through all right. But Jimmy lost
his head — and indeed there are only a few men who
wouldn't, for the drivers of both cars were furiously
clanging their bells, and the whole world seemed to
be nothing but noise, noise, and great moving things
coming every way at once. He jammed on the brakes
suddenly, which was just what Brown in the tonneau
was trying to warn him not to do, and before I knew
what had happened our automobile waltzed round on
the road with a slippery sort of slide, the way your
foot does when you step on ice under snow.

I thought we were finished, and I'm afraid I shut
my eyes. "Just like a girl!" O yes, thank you;
I know that; but I didn't know it or anything else at
that minute. There was loud shouting and swearing,

The Lightning Conductor 221

then a bump, a noise of splintering wood, another
bump, and we were still alive and unhurt, with a buzz
of voices round us — quite unkind voices some of
them, though I never felt more as if I wanted kind-
ness. It occurred to me to open my eyes, and I
found that we had brought up against the curbstone,
while one of our mud-guards had been smashed by
the iron rail of the electric street car, now stationary.
Our Napier had turned completely round. The
conductor of the tram was scrutinising his scratched
rail and saying things ; but Brown, who had jumped
out to examine into our damage, slyly slipped some-
thing that looked like a five-franc piece into his hand.
This reminds me, I must pay Brown back; he can't
refuse such a thing as that, though it seems he has
taken a sort of pledge against accepting tips in his
professional career. Funny, isn't it? "For a touch
of new paint," I heard him murmur to the conductor
in his nice French, and that man must have been in a
great hurry to try the effect of the "touch," for no
sooner did the coin change hands than he stopped
scolding, and away buzzed the big electric bumble-
bee.

"For mercy's sake, what was it that happened?"
gasped Aunt Mary.

"Side-slip, miss," said Brown in a tone dry enough
to turn the mud to dust, " from putting on the brakes
too quickly. A driver can't be too careful on a sur-
face like this." Which was one for Jimmy.

The poor fellow took it with outward meekness,
though I saw his eyes give a flash — and, do you
know, our blond Jimmy can look quite malevolent!

222 The Lightning Conductor

He didn't speak to Brown, but turned to me, and
said the side-slip wasn't really his fault at all; it
might happen to anybody in greasy weather; but
he would be still more cautious now than before. I
didn't like to humiliate a guest by superseding him
with a servant, capable as the servant is, so I said
that I hoped he would be very careful, and we started
on again, somewhat chastened in our mood, driving
slowly, slowly, through interminable suburbs to a
place called Aubagne.

There was a splendid sunset after the rain, with a
wonderful effect of heavy violet cloud-curtains with
jagged gold edges, drawn up to show a clear sky of
pale beryl-green; and sharp against the green were
cut out purple mountains and white villages that
looked like flocks of resting gulls. We were in wild
and beautiful country by the time the thickening
clouds compelled us to stop and light our two oil-
lamps and the huge acetylene Bleriot.

There was a good deal of wind, and Aunt Mary
began to shiver as we started on, still going slowly.
"Oh dear ! " she exclaimed crossly, "we shall never
get anywhere to-night if we crawl like this. Surely
there's no danger now? "

That was enough for Jimmy. He said that cer-
tainly there was no danger now, and never had been.
Opening the throttle, he began to tell me anecdotes
of a trip he had made with his Panhard over the
Stelvio with snow on the ground. If I weren't afraid
now of a decent pace, he'd get us into Toulon in no
time.

I do hate to have people think I'm afraid, so of

The Lightning Conductor 223

course I denied it sharply, and we began to fly down
hill. Our lamps seemed to have shut the night down
closely all around us. We didn't see much except
the road with the light flying along it; but suddenly
circling round a curve, there appeared — dark within
the brilliant circle of our Bleriot — a great, unlighted
waggon lumbering up the hill we were descending,
and on the wrong side of the road.

We were close on to it, and oh, Dad, that was a
bad moment! It was made up of lightning-quick
impressions and feelings, no reasoning at all. Jimmy
was frantically blowing the horn, though it was too
late to be of much good. I had a vision of a startled
Jack-in-the-box man appearing from the bottom of
the waggon to snatch wildly at the reins; the next
instant our car waltzed round just as it had in Mar-
seilles, twisted off the road, and, with a loud shriek
from Aunt Mary, who had clutched me by the arm,
we all pitched headlong into darkness.

It felt as if we were falling for ever so long, just
as it does in a dream before you wake up with a
great start; but I suppose it really wasn't more than
a second. The next thing I knew, I was on my
hands and knees among some stones; and evidently
I'm vainer than I fancied, for among other thoughts
coming one on top of the other, I was glad my face
wasn't hurt. I've always imagined that it must be
terrible for a girl to come to herself after an accident
and find she had no face.

I scrambled to my feet and began calling to the
others. I think I called Brown first, because, you
see, he is so quick in emergencies, and he would be

224 The Lightning Conductor

ready to look after the others. But he didn't speak,
and the most awful cold, sick feeling settled down on
my heart. "Oh, Brown, Brown!" I heard myself
crying, just as you hear yourself in a nightmare,
and it hardly seemed more real than that. Into
the midst of my calling Aunt Mary's voice mingled,
and I was thankful, for it didn't sound as if she were
much hurt.

Our lamps had gone out, and it was almost pitch
dark now, for clouds covered the moon. But there
came a glimmer, which kept growing brighter; and
looking up I saw a man standing with a lantern held
over his head, peering down a steep bank with a look
of horror. The same glimmer showed me something
else — Brown's face on the ground, white as a stone,
his eyes wide open with an unseeing stare. I ran to
him, and found that I was pushing Aunt Mary back,
as she was trying to get up from somewhere close at
hand. She caught at me, and wouldn't let me go by.
"Oh dear, oh dear! " she was sobbing, and I begged
her to tell me if she were hurt.

"No, thank Heaven! I fell on Brown," she said,
"and that saved me."

I could have boxed her ears. One would have
thought, to hear her, that he was a sort of fire-escape.
I snatched my dress out of her hands, and knelt
down beside poor Brown, who was perhaps dead, all
through my fault — for I saw now that I ought never
to have let Jimmy Payne drive the car. By this time
the man with the lantern (it was the carter who had
made the trouble for us) had slid down the steep
bank, and come straight to where I was kneeling.

The Lightning Conductor 225

" Ah, mademoiselle, il est mortf " he exclaimed. How
I did hate him! I screamed out, "He isn't, he isn't! "
but it was only to make myself believe it wasn't
true, and I couldn't help crying — big hot tears
that splashed right down into Brown's eyes. And I
suppose it was their being so hot that woke him
up, for he did wake up, and looked straight at me,
dazed at first, then sensibly — such a queer effect, the
intelligence and brightness taking the place of that
frightened stare. The first thing he said was, "Are
you hurt ? " And I said " No " ; and then I discovered
that I was holding his hand as fast as ever I could
— only think, holding your chauffeur's hand! — but
such a brave, faithful chauffeur, never thinking of his
own face, as I had of mine, but of me.

That made me laugh and draw back, and we both
said something about being glad. And I wanted to
help him, but he didn't need any help, and was up
like an arrow the next second. And then, for the
first time, I saw the car, standing upright with Jimmy
Payne, sitting in it, hanging on like grim death to the
steering-post, which he was embracing as if he were
a monkey on a stick.

I did laugh at that — one does laugh more when
something' dreadful has nearly happened, but not
quite, than at any other time, I think — though into
the midst of my laugh came a sudden little pain.
It was in my left wrist, and it ached hard, one quick
throb after another, as if they were in a hurry to get
their chance to hurt. But I didn't say anything,
for it seemed such a trifle. Brown assured me that
he was "right as rain," that he'd only been dazed

226 The Lightning Conductor

and perhaps unconscious for a minute through falling
on his head. I wondered if he knew about Aunt
Mary. But it was too delicate a subject to raise.
Anyway, she hadn't a bruise. And wasn't it extra-
ordinary about Jimmy? The car had "fallen on
its feet," so to speak, and he had hung on to the
steering-post so hard that not only had he kept his
seat, but he had wrenched the steering-gear. Brown
discovered this in peering into the works by the light
of one of our own oil-lamps, relit from the carter's
lantern. If the Napier hadn't been a magnificent
car it would have been frightfully damaged, although,
finding itself compelled to take a twelve-foot jump
off the road, it had cleverly chosen comparatively
smooth, meadow-like ground to descend upon. Not
even a tyre was punctured; no harm whatever
appeared to have been done except that, as I said,
owing to Jimmy's savage contortions in search of
safety, the steering-gear was wrenched.

There's a thing called a worm in steering-gear, it
seems, also a rod; and new ones would have to be
fitted in ours before we could go on again. When I
heard this I felt rather qualmish, for my wrist was
aching a good deal, and had begun to swell. Brown
and the carter were talking together, and according
to them the best thing seemed to be to carry luggage
and rugs to the nearest village, Le Beausset, and try
to get accommodation there for the night. Brown
would go on to Toulon, he said, and try to get new
parts for the car, with which he'd come back early in
the morning.

Still I didn't say anything about my wrist. Aunt

The Lightning Conductor 227

Mary and I scrambled up the bank, and Brown,
Jimmy, and the carter went back and forth for our
things. The latter had been going away from Le
Beausset, not towards it when the accident happened,
but he agreed to turn round and take our luggage on
his cart to the village. He made room for Aunt Mary
too, sitting on bags and portmanteaus like Marius
on the ruins of Carthage, and the rest of us walked,
about a mile.

Le Beausset proved to be a tiny place, and at the
solitary inn there was but one small bedroom to let,
the rest being taken by some rough, selfish-looking
commercial travellers, who were having an early
dinner in a hot and smelly salle d manger, with every
breath of air religiously excluded.

I thought that without being fussy I might draw
the general attention to myself. I announced a wrist,
and demanded a surgeon lest I had cracked a bone.
Brown vanished like a pantomine demon, but re-
turned almost immediately with a long face, and the
intelligence that Le Beausset had neither surgeon
nor resident doctor. There was no vehicle, not even
a bicycle, to be had for love or money at this time
of day, but he would make all haste to Toulon and
send back a competent man. The worst of it was
there might be delay, as it was about ten miles to
Toulon. Halfway between Le Beausset and the big
town was a small one called Ollioules, and there, it
appeared, one could take an electric tram into Tou-
lon; but it was a long way for a doctor to come,
and it might be several hours before he could arrive.

"Then I'll go to Toulon with you,'' said I. "I

228 The Lightning Conductor

don't feel as if I could stand much waiting; the walk
will take my mind off the pain, and I can have my
wrist attended to the minute I get there. "

Instantly Aunt Mary burst into a cataract of objec-
tions, and I only dammed the flood (quite in the
proper sense of the word, because, like Marjorie
Fleming, I was "most unusual calm; I did not give,
a single damn") by suggesting that, once in Toulon,
I might send back a comfortable carriage and engage
rooms in a good hotel for us all for the night.

"Well, I can't and won't stay here alone, that's
flat," pronounced my dear aunt; and despite all her
lectures against "liberty, fraternity, and equality" in
my treatment of poor Brown, she was willing to let
me go unchaperoned save by him, for the sake of
retaining Jimmy Payne's protecting presence herself.
As for Jimmy, it was easy to see that he didn't like
the idea at all; but he had jarred himself a good
deal in his eccentric fall, and evidently funked another
tramp. He had limped ostentatiously every step of
the way to Le Beausset. Brown was afraid that I
wasn't up to the walk, but I assured him it would
be much less uncomfortable than indefinite waiting,
and I think he saw by my face that I was right.
After all our delay it was only half-past five when
we set off, and would scarcely have been thoroughly
dark if it hadn't been for the clouds which had been
boiling up from the west all over the sky.

I had no idea what kind of ai/walk we were in for
when we started, neither had Brown, for he had
never been over exactly this part of the world either
walking or driving, but only in the train. We hadn't

The Lightning Conductor 229

ibeen gone long when we plunged downwards into
a deep and winding mountain gorge, the kind of cut-
throat place where you'd expect brigands to grow on
blackberry bushes. Oh, but it was dark, with only
now and then a fitful gleam of moonlight cutting its
way through a rent in the inky clouds ! Hardly had
the word "brigands" crept into my mind with an
accompaniment of heart-beats something like the
plink! plink! plink! villain entrance-music on the
stage, when two indistinct forms loomed out of the
blackness before us. A perpendicular wall of rock
shot up from the road on one side, and on the other,
in some unseen depth below, roared a torrent, which
drowned my voice when I whispered to Brown, so
I clutched his coat-sleeve instead of speaking.

The two men were chattering loudly in Italian.
"Ah, Italian brigands, worse and worse!" thought
I; but Brown said "Good-evening" to them boldly,
.and they answered as mildly as a pair of lambs,
falling behind to let us pass on. I skipped along,
expecting at any instant to feel a knife, in my back,
but the blade did not penetrate any part more vital
than my imagination, though the pair hung on our
footsteps till we emerged from the mountain defile
into the town of Ollioules.

I never knew what an attractive object an electric
tram could be, until I saw one there awaiting our
convenience, glittering with hospitable light. We
jumped in, and were flashed into Toulon in no time,
stopping close to the best hotel. We found that
they could accommodate our party, but Brown quite
took the upper hand; wouldn't allow me to stop and

230 The Lightning Conductor

talk, had me swept off to a very nice room, and said
that not only would he see about a surgeon for me,
but would arrange for a carriage to drive back for
Aunt Mary and Jimmy.

Till we got into the electric car at Ollioules I
hadn't noticed in the dark that Brown was carrying
anything. But he put down on the car seat quite a
heavy bag of mine and a sort of big dressing-case
of his own, which is his only baggage on the auto-
mobile. "Why did you lug all that?" I exclaimed.
"Oh, I thought you might need something before
the others arrived," said he, "and I didn't like to
trouble them to look after mine." Wasn't he thought-
ful? And I was glad to have my bag — without
waiting. But just think of the state of that poor
fellow's muscles!

It was a qtiarter to seven when I got into my
rooms at the hotel, and ten minutes later the doctor
arrived. If he had had bad news to give me about
my wrist, I shouldn't have written the tale of this
adventure so frankly ; but I can leave a good im- ,
pression on your mind in the end by telling you that '
all's well with your "one fair daughter." It's a sprain,
no worse; and the stuff which the clever man pre-
scribed has soothed the pain wonderfully. I'm so
thankful it's my left wrist, not the right; and so
ought you to be, or you would have to do without
letters. This is the time when I miss my maid; but
a dear little femme de chambre of the hotel helped
me dress, and it is wonderful how well you can get
on with only one hand.

Now I've something else to break to you, Dad.

The Lightning Conductor 231

The hotel was rather full, and all the private sitting-
rooms were gone, otherwise I might have had dinner
upstairs; but I drew the line at dining abjectly in a
bedroom. Still, I didn't quite like the idea of sailing
into a big salle d manger, alone, with a bound-up
wrist, and perhaps making an exhibition of myself
cutting up meat in a one-handed way. So before
Brown went to call the doctor I just said to him
casually that it would be an accommodation if hev
would dine in the salle d manger with me this once.
He looked surprised, and seemed to hesitate a little
before he said that he would do so with pleasure, if I
thought it best. I was almost sorry I'd asked, but
I wouldn't go back; and, anyhow, what else could I
have done? He is extraordinarily gentlemanly in
his looks and manner, and never takes the least
advantage; so I hope you'll agree with me that of
two evils I chose the less. And when I made the
arrangement I supposed Aunt Mary and Jimmy
would be arriving before bedtime, so that I should
only be a lone, unprotected female for a few hours.
But we hadn't been in the hotel five minutes before
it came on to rain again, a perfect deluge this time,
with thunder and lightning; and while the nice
femme de chambre was helping me into a ducky little
lace waist which was in the bag Brown had carried,
to my great surprise a telegram was brought to my
door. At first I thought there must be a mistake,
but it really was for me. Brown had mentioned the
name of the best hotel in Toulon, where we would
try to get rooms before he and I left the others at Le
Beausset; and the telegram was from Aunt Mary.

232 The Lightning Conductor

"Don't send carriage. Prefer stay here to driving
in such storm. Feel sure you are safe without us."

I knew the carriage was already ordered, but
thinking it might not have started, I scribbled a line
in pencil to Brown, and enclosed the telegram. Aunt
Mary is such a coward in thunderstorms; but it was
silly of her, for it couldn't have gone on thundering
all night. I was rather cross, but I had to laugh
when I thought of Jimmy. He must have been
wild.

If I'd known in time, perhaps I should have stayed
ignominiously in my bedroom, but I wouldn't make
a change then ; it seemed such a tempest in a teapot.
So when I was ready I went down as if nothing had
happened, and looked around for Brown where I'd
told him to meet me at half-past eight, in the hall.
My goodness! I was surprised when I saw him in
evening dress — a jolly dinner-jacket and a black tie.
He might have been a prince. I wouldn't have said
a word if I'd stopped to think; but I exclaimed on
the impulse, and was dreadfully ashamed of myself,
for he got rather red. He said quite humbly that he
hadn't wished to discredit me, since I'd done him the
honour of allowing him to serve me in a somewhat
different capacity this evening (that was a nice way
of putting it, wasn't it?), so he had decided to wear
a suit of clothes which Mr. John Winston had left
him; and he hoped I wasn't displeased.

After all, why should I have been when you come
to think of it? So we dined at a little table all to
ourselves, with pretty shaded candles and some lovely
flowers. People were already beginning to leave the

The Lightning Conductor 233

room, and nobody noticed anything strange about us
as a couple; we appeared just like everybody else,
only rather better looking, if I do say it myself. I
had a very interesting talk with Brown, and he told
me several things about his life, though I had to
draw them out, as he is more modest than Jimmy
Payne. He is far above his work, though he does it
so well. I wish so much you could do something
nice for him. Can't you?

This is the next morning, and I am writing in my
room, waiting for the car to arrive. Aunt Mary and
Jimmy will come in it; they've telegraphed again.

I am looking forward to the Riviera now, but I
have such a queer, unsettled feeling — sort of half sad,
without knowing why, which is stupid, as I'm having
a splendid time. I suppose it's my wrist which has
made me nervous.

Your loving

MOLLY.

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

GRAND HOTEL, TOULON,

December 19.

My good Montie,

It is getting on towards eleven o'clock at
night, and as Payne has treated us to a smashup
and I have walked some miles carrying I don't know
how many pounds of luggage, you might think that
I would be more inclined for bed than letter- writing.
But, on the contrary, I have no desire for sleep.
A change has come o'er my spirit. I am happy,
I have dined alone with my Goddess. I almost took
your advice and the opportunity to make a clean
breast of things, but not quite. Presently I will tell
you why, and ask if you don't think I was right in
the circumstances.

The said circumstances I owe indirectly to Payne
— also a lump on the back of my head; but that
is a detail. I am in too blissful a frame of mind
to-night to dwell on it or any other detail belonging
to the accident, though maybe I'll give you the his-
tory of the affair in a future letter. Suffice it to say,
before getting on to pleasanter things, that the car
reposes in a lonesome meadow below a steep em-
bankment about a dozen miles away, where it is

334

The Lightning Conductor 235

perfectly safe till I can get back to its succour early
to-morrow; Aunt Mary and Jimmy Sherlock are
enjoying each other's society at a country inn rather
nearer; Miss Randolph and I are here. She came
on because she had to have a sprained wrist treated
by a competent doctor; I came to buy new parts for
the car; naturally we joined forces. The others were
to have a carriage sent back to them from Toulon,
but Aunt Mary funked the long drive on account of
a furious storm. Miss Randolph could get no private
sitting-room, and as, with a disabled wrist, she didn't
care to face the ordeal of a salle d manger alone, she
suggested that I should attend her at dinner. Not
as a servant, mind, but "for this occasion only" as an
equal.

For an instant I was doubtful, for her sake; but to
have put a thought of impropriety into her sweet
mind would have been coarse. Besides, the request
from mistress to man was equivalent to a royal
command. I hope, however, that had there been
any fear of unfortunate consequences to her, I should
have been strong enough to resist temptation.

I told her that, if she thought it best to condescend
to my companionship, I should be highly honoured.
And I added that I had with me a decent suit of
black. We then parted; I went to find a doctor for
Miss Randolph, and to see about a carriage to go
back for the others to the village of Le Beausset. It
also occurred to me that it would be nice to have a
few flowers with which to deck the table for the hap-
piest dinner of my life. The shops were not yet all
closed, and at one not far from the hotel I selected

236 The Lightning Conductor

some exquisite La France roses and a dozen sprays
of forced white lilac, which I had once heard Miss
Randolph say was among her favourite flowers.
When I came to pay the bill, however — three francs
a spray for the lilac, and a franc for each of the twelve
roses — there were only a few coppers in my pocket.
I remembered then that I had spent my last franc
in Marseilles, without attaching any importance
to the matter, as I'd wired for remittances to arrive
at Cannes, and my "screw" due to-night would see
me through till then. Now the situation was a bit
awkward. I wanted to take the flowers with me
and give them to the head waiter to place on the
table where Miss Randolph and I would dine. I
could not have them sent over and ask the hotel
people to settle, because then they would appear on
her bill to-morrow morning, as now she would cer-
tainly not pay my wages this evening. I couldn't
bear to give up the bouquet; besides, I would need
more ready money to-night. I had visions of order-
ing first-rate wine, and letting the Goddess suppose it
was vin compris with the table d'hote dinner. I there-
fore confessed my pennilessness to the shopman, and
asked if I should be likely to find a mont-de-piftt
still open. He replied that the pawnshops did their
busiest trade in the evening about this time, told me
where I could find the best, and agreed to keep the
flowers until my return.

The one thing of value I had with me was my
monogrammed gold repeater, which my father gave
me when I went up to Oxford, and I didn't much
like parting with it, especially as I can't get it back

The Lightning Conductor 237

to-morrow, but will have to send back the ticket for
it from Cannes, when I'm in funds. However, I
had no choice, so I put my poor turnip up the spout,
and got a tenner for it. With this in French money
I retraced my steps to the florist's, and bore off my
fragrant spoils in triumph to the hotel. Hardly
had I given the flowers to the head waiter, ordered
an extra dish or two on the menu and a bottle of
Mumm to be iced, when a pencilled note from Miss
Randolph was handed to me. It contained a wire
from Aunt Mary, saying that she and Jimmy would
not leave their present quarters, on account of the
storm. I sent word to have the carriage stopped,
and luckily for the driver the message was just in
time. Then it struck me that in the circumstances
I had better put up at another hotel for the night.
I made all arrangements, had my bag taken over
to a little commercial sort of house near by, and
left myself just twenty minutes to bathe and change.
Gladstone could do it in five, I've been told. But
it was all I could manage in fifteen, for I had de-
cided to do myself well, not to shame my dinner-
companion.

Thanks to my little trick of going to a different
hotel from the party when we are stopping anywhere
longer than one night, I can always indulge in
civilised garb of an evening therefore in the dressing-
case, which is my little all on the car, I carry some-
thing decent. Our mutual tailor, Montie, is not to
be despised; and when I'd got into my pumps and
all my things, I don't think there was much amiss.

I arrived at our rendezvous — the hall of the hotel

238 The Lightning Conductor

— just one minute before the appointed time; and
five minutes later I saw Her coming downstairs.

I have 'sometimes caught a glimpse of her in the
evenings, dressed for dinner at' good hotels, and her
frocks are like herself, always the most perfect. To-
night she had no luggage except a bag I had carried,
nevertheless she had somehow achieved a costume in
which she was a vision. Perhaps if I were a woman
I should have seen that she had on her day-skirt,
with an evening bodice, but being merely a man over
his ears in love, I can only tell you that the effect
was dazzling. In admiration of her I forgot my
own transformation until I saw her pretty eyebrows
go up with surprise.

I felt my heart thump behind my rather jolly
white waistcoat. On the second step from the
bottom she stopped and exclaimed, "Why, Brown,

how nice you look! You're exactly like a "

There she stopped, getting deliciously pink, as if she'd
been a naughty child pinched by a "grown-up" in
the midst of a malapropos remark. I could fill up
the blank for myself, and was highly complimented
by her opinion that I was "exactly like a gentleman."
I explained that the clothes were Mr. Winston's, and
had been donned with a highly laudable motive. It
was evident that she approved both cause and effect ;
and we went in to dinner together.

I can't describe to you, my boy, the pure delight
of that moment; the pride I felt in her beauty, the
new and intoxicating sense of possession born of the
tete-a-tete. But if you could have seen the lovely
shadow her eyelashes made on her cheeks as she sat

The Lightning Conductor 239

there opposite to me at our daintily appointed little
table, you might partly understand.

Fortunately there was a small bunch of flowers on
each table, so that ours was not conspicuous, save in
superiority. She admired it, took out a spray of
lilac and tucked it into the neck of her dress, the
stem lying close against her white satin skin. Then,
as she ate the hors d'&uvres, she sat silent and ap-
parently thoughtful. It was not until we had be-
gun with the soup that she spoke again.

"I do hope you won't think me rude or inquisi-
tive, Brown," was her curiosity-provoking preface.
"I don't mean to be either. But, you know, you
interest me a good deal. In America we haven't
precisely a middle class. It's all top and bottom
with us, just like a tart with the inside forgotten.
There, one wouldn't — wouldn't be apt to meet any-
one quite like you. I — oh, I don't know how to put
it. I'm afraid I began to say something that I can't
finish. But — let me see, what shall I say? Isn't it
a pity that with your intelligence and — and manners,
and all you've learned, you can't get a position
which would — would give you — er — better oppor-
tunities?"

At the moment I thought that no position could
give me a better opportunity than I had; in fact, as
I began to tell you in the first few lines of this letter,
I was inclined to believe it sent by Providence as
an unexpected way out of my difficulties. Here we
were together in no danger of being disturbed by out-
siders (one doesn't count a waiter); here was she in
a benignant mood, interested in me, and inclined to

240 The Lightning Conductor

kindness. In another second I would have blurted
out the whole truth, when a voice seemed to say in-
side of me, "No, she is alone in this hotel to-night
with you. She is, in a way, at your mercy. You
will be doing an unchivalrous thing if, when she is
practically deserted by her people and thrown upon
your protection, you proclaim yourself a lover in
place of a servant." That voice was right. Even
you can't say it wasn't.

I swallowed my confession with a spoonful of soup,
and nearly choked over the combination.

"The fact is," I said desperately yet cautiously,
"since you are kind enough to take an interest, that
I — er — am not exactly what I seem to-day. My
parents were gentlefolk, in a humble way." (I didn't
go beyond the truth there, did I? And as for the
"humble way," why, everything goes by compari-
son, from a king down to a mere viscount.) "They
gave me an education" (they did, bless them!), "but
owing to — er — strong pressure of circumstances"
(the effect of Her beauty, seen in a Paris garage) "I
decided to make use of my mechanical knowledge
in the way I am doing at present."

"I suppose," commented my Goddess, with the
sweetest sympathy, "that you had lost your money."

"Well," I said, thinking of my late penniless con-
dition and my watch at the pawnshop, "I have a
great deal less money now than I was brought up to
expect."

"That is very sad," she sighed.

"And yet," I remarked, "it has its compensations.
I consider my place with you a very good one."

The Lightning Conductor 241

"It can't be better than many others you have
had," said she.

" In some ways it is much the best I have ever en-
joyed," I responded.

" At all events, it isn't half as good as you deserve,"
the Angel cried warmly. " I should like to see you
in one far more desirable."

"Thank you," said I meekly. "So should I, of
course, though i should wish it still to be in your
service."

"If that could be," she murmured, with a slight
blush and a flattering air of regret. "I don't quite
see how it could. But if you wouldn't mind going
to America, perhaps my father might help you to
something really worth while."

"Nothing could be better for me than to have
his help in obtaining what I want," said I boldly,
knowing she wouldn't suspect the double mean-
ing. "You are very good I can't thank you
enough."

"Wait till I have done something to be thanked
for," said she. "I will write to my father. But
even if anything comes of it, it can't be for some
time. Meanwhile, I suppose you will be taking
Mr. Winston's car back to England, when we part at
Cannes."

"Part at Cannes!" The words were a knell
"You aren't thinking, then, of going further for a
trip into Italy? " I ventured.

"No, I haven't thought of it," she said.

"It does seem a pity, with Italy next door, so to
speak," said I. "Unless, of course, you're tired of

242 The Lightning Conductor

motoring and would like to settle down and have
some gaiety."

"I'm not tired of motoring," she exclaimed, "and
I'm not pining for gaiety. I think this sort of free,
open-air life, with big horizons round one, spoils one
for dancing and dressing and flir — and all that.
I should love just to have a glimpse of the Riviera,
and then go on. But I hadn't thought of it, and
I'm not sure if it could be managed. I'd have to
reflect upon the idea a little, and cable my father
to see if he were willing. Not that there'd be much
trouble about that. He trusts me, and almost always
lets me do what I like. But supposing — just suppos-
ing I changed my plans — would Mr. Winston be will-
ing to let me keep his car longer?"

"As much longer as you choose," said I eagerly.
"He doesn't want it in England till next summer.
I'm certain of that."

"Well, then, I must think it over," she answered.
"Oh, it would be glorious! Yet — I don't know.
Anyway, we must take Lady Brighthelmston, Mr.
Winston's mother, a drive on her son's car when we
get to Cannes. She is staying there."

"Oh, is she?" I said aloud. And inwardly I
prayed that I might see the lady in question in
private before that invitation was given. But per-
haps she will have flitted. I wonder?

Well, I have given you the principal points of our
conversation enough to show you why I am happy
to-night. But if you could have seen me cutting up
the Goddess's filet mignon! I could have shed tears
•of joy on it.

The Lightning Conductor 243

Now I must be off to my own hotel, and to-morrow
I shall be up with the dawn in search of a mechanic
and new parts for the car.

Good-bye, old man. Wish me luck.
Yours ever,

JACK WINSTON.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

HOTEL ANGST, BORDIGHERA,

December z 5 .

Merry Christmas, my dear Santa Klaus, merry
Christmas! This morning I sent you a long cable,
expressing my sentiments. It does seem strange to
think that by this time you have it. A thousand
thousand thanks for your letter and the enclosure at
Cannes. You are the dearest Dad!

Our first Christmas apart! and may it be the last.
Christmas isn't Christmas without you and a stocking
to hang up, and I'm awfully homesick. Still, if one
can't be spirited away home on a magic carpet, this
is the sweetest place to spend Christmas in you can
imagine.

Speaking of magic carpets recalls the Arabian
Nights, and gives me a simile. For a whole week
I've been realising what Aladdin must have felt when
the Genie took him into the wonderful Cave of
Jewels. Oh, the Riviera! But you know it, dear.
You spent your honeymoon with the beautiful little
mother whom I never knew in the Riviera and in
Italy. That is one reason why I want to see Italy —
why I sent that question to you by cable the other
day. Your one journey abroad, dear, dear old Dad!
I can guess now why you have never been keen to

244

The Lightning Conductor 245

come again, though you have always pretended you
preferred Wall Street to all Europe. Now I am
seeing these fairylike places I know how you have
wished to keep the memory unspoiled; for they
would never, never be the same if you saw them for
the second time, even .with me, though you do love
me dearly, don't you? It's -first times that are so
thrilling; and I'm having my first times now, though
they're different from yours. I don't suppose I shall
ever have such a love in my life as you had, or if
I do, it will be sad and broken. Either the man I
could care for would be divided from me by an
impassable barrier, or something else horrid will
happen. I feel that. I shall never write like this
again, but I can't help it to-night. There! I won't
go on about your past and my future any more ; but
just about the "winged present." And, oh, its wings
are of rainbows!

Elderly people I've talked to at hotels during the
last few days tell me the "Riviera is being ruined. "
You would say so too perhaps; but it seems heaven
to me, from Hyeres to Bordighera — as far as we've
gone. Just here I must stop and thank you for
your answer to my cable and saying "Italy by all
means. " If it hadn't been for that, we shouldn't be
here.

I thought that we couldn't see anything more
beautiful than on the other side of Marseilles; but
the Riviera is a thing apart. I'm gratefully glad to
have come into such an enchanted land of sunshine
and flowers on an automobile instead of a stuffy
train. There's nothing in the world to equal travel-

246 The Lightning Conductor

ling on a motor-car. You can go fast or slow; you
can stop where you like and as long as you like;
with a little luggage on your car you're as inde-
pendent as a bird ; and like a bird you float through
the open air, with no thought for time-tables. When
will the poet come who will sing the song of the
motor-car? Maeterlinck has sung it in prose, but
the song was too short.

Of course, after that horrid affair the other side
of Toulon I couldn't let Jimmy drive any more. He
realised that I distrusted him and rather sulkily
resigned the wheel, blaming the car for the accident
and declaring that it could not have happened to his
Panhard, which, of course, is silly. So Brown took
the helm again, and Jimmy sat in the tonneau with
Aunt Mary, where they whispered and chuckled a
good deal together, appearing to have a real live
mystery up their sleeves, which I suppose had some-
thing to do with the promised surprise at Cannes.

It was quite late in the day before the steering-
gear was mended and we could take the road again,
and then we all thought it a pity to run through the
dark to Cannes, so we decided to stay a second night
in Toulon, at the same hotel where I had dinner with
Brown; he, poor fellow, being this time banished to
some invisible lower region, or another hotel, for
Aunt Mary and Jimmy would have had fits if I had
proposed that he should make a fourth at our table.
I thought the people of the hotel and the head
waiter looked curiously at me; for one night they
saw me dine with a gentleman who the next night
drives to the door as my chauffeur (I assure you,

The Lightning Conductor 247

Dad, it's no stretch of language to speak of Brown
as a "gentleman," and you really must get him a
gentleman's berth, even if it's way off in Klondyke).

Early next morning we started for what proved
to be the most beautiful drive we have yet had, as
warm as summer, and sparkling with sunshine. We
bowled along at a gentle pace through a fairyland
of flowers and rivers, with billowy blue mountains
rising into the sky, and showing here and there a
distant ethereal peak of snow. Very soon we passed
through Hyeres, which Brown called the gate of the
Riviera, and I should have liked to turn aside for
a peep at Costebelle, which Brown thinks one of the
loveliest places of all. But Aunt Mary and Jimmy
both opposed me, saying that we ought to get on
as soon as possible to Cannes — "to Cannes" was
their constant cry.

Beyond Hyeres the road became more and more
superb. We were travelling now along the moun-
tains of the Moors, gliding through groves of oak
and woods of shimmering grey-green olives, with
glimpses of the glittering sea on our right hand.
Presently the way dipped to the verge of the sea
as far as Frejus, from which place it rose again to
wind up and up into the heart of the Esterels. Though
we mounted many hundreds of feet, the road was
so well engineered that gradients were not very
trying. Our agreeable Napier, at any rate, made
nothing of them, but simply flew up at twelve or
fourteen miles an hour. And the descent on the
other side! My heart comes into my mouth when
I think of it. "It's quite safe," said Brown; but it

248 The Lightning Conductor

looked the most breakneck thing in the world, and
my very toes seemed to curl up, not with fear, but
with a kind of awful joy. I think when a bird takes
its great swoops through the air it must feel like
we felt that day. The car bounded down the long
lengths of looped road, slowed up a little at the
turns (where we all had to throw our bodies side-
ways, like sailors hanging over the gunwale of a
racing yacht), bounded forward again so that the
wind rushed by our ears like a hurricane, slowed up
once more, and so by a series of these magnificent
bird-like swoops reached the level ground. It was
a fine piece of driving on Brown's part, needing
nerve, judgment, and a perfect knowledge of the
capabilities of his car. I had scarcely recovered from
the tingling joy of this wild mountain descent when
we were in Cannes, driving up an avenue to our
hotel.

It was a charming house, and I fell in love with
Cannes at first sight; but would you believe it?
Jimmy's wonderful surprise never came off at all! —
and he wouldn't even tell me what it was. Aunt
Mary wanted to; but he got quite red, and said,
"No, Miss Kedison, it may make me a great deal
of trouble if you say anything — at present. The
whole position is changed." I think mysteries are
silly.

By the way, you remember my telling you about
the nice Lady Brighthelmston I met in Paris, on her
way to the Riviera — the mother of the Honourable
John who owns our Napier? She was going to stay
at this very hotel, and I thought it would be rather

The Lightning Conductor 249

nice to see her again. I meant to ask, when we
arrived at the hotel, if she were there; but to my
surprise Aunt Mary remembered to do it before I
did, and she and Jimmy both seemed eager to find
out. We had hardly got into the big, beautiful hall,
when they began to ply the manager with questions,
and Jimmy looked quite crestfallen when he was
told that she had just gone on to Rome. He is rather
fond of what he calls "swells," but I hadn't fancied
from what he said before that he knew Lady Bright-
helmston very well, or cared particularly about meet-
ing her.

"Most annoying!" he exclaimed crossly, glaring
at the manager as if it were his fault. "And has
the Honourable John Winston, her son, been here
also?"

"No," said the manager. "Lady Brighthelmston
was with friends, an old gentleman and his daughter.
But I understood that her ladyship's son was expected
and that she was disappointed he did not arrive
before she and her party went away. Lady Bright-
helmston left a letter for Mr. Winston," and he
pointed to a letter in the rack close by the office
addressed in a large handwriting to the Honourable
John Winston.

I was quite frightened when I heard that the
owner of my car was expected to arrive in Cannes,
for Brown was so certain that he was in England;
yet here he might walk in at any moment to say
that he'd changed his mind and wanted back his
Napier. Just as I was thinking of going on to Italy
in it, too! Why, the very thought that maybe I

250 The Lightning Conductor

should have to lose the car made me long to keep it
all the more.

I was gazing reproachfully at the letter and
wondering if we hadn't better hurry away from
Cannes before the H. J. turned up, when I saw
Aunt Mary lay her hand on Jimmy's arm in a warn-
ing kind of way, as if she wanted to keep him from
saying something he had begun to say. At that
moment I found that Brown was at my elbow,
though whether Aunt Mary's warning to Jimmy
had anything to do with him or not I don't know.
I don't see why it should, but she did look rather
funny. Brown had come in to bring me my dear
little gold-netted purse with my monogram in
rubies and diamonds that you gave me just before
I started. I'd dropped it off my lap when I got
out of the car, so you see I'm as bad about that
as ever. I thanked Brown, and then drawing him
aside a little, I told him about Mr. Winston and
what I was afraid of. He was as sure as ever that
his old master wouldn't turn up to spoil sport,
though I pointed out the letter; and it's a funny
thing that the Hon. J.'s en- chauffeur should be kept
more in touch with his movements than his own
mother. However, that's not my business.

That afternoon Aunt Mary, Jimmy, and I had a
lovely walk in Cannes by the sea. We had tea at
a fascinating confectioner's called Rumpelmayer,
and a long time afterwards dined at a perfect dream
of a little restaurant built out into the sea — the
Restaurant de la Reserve, something like the one in
Marseilles. I wonder if they were here in your day,

The Lightning Conductor 251

Dad? There are pens in the water built up with
walls, and lobsters and other creatures are swimming
unsuspectingly about in them. You select your own
fish, and in a few minutes the poor thing, so happy a
little while ago, is on the table exquisitely cooked
with its own appropriate sauce. It seems sad. Still,
one does give them honourable burial, and they
couldn't expect to live for ever. I let Jimmy choose
mine, though, and while he and Aunt Mary dis-
cussed the langouste I leaned on the railing looking
out over the bay. You will remember that scene —
all the twinkling lights of the town, and the tumbled
mass of the Esterel mountains, sombre and strange,
across the sea.

At dinner I began to hint to Aunt Mary about
going on to Italy, but I was rather sorry I'd said
anything, for Jimmy caught me up like a flash, and
exclaimed that if we did make up our minds to such
a trip, he would like to keep us company on his
Panhard, which he should no doubt find waiting for
him at Nice. Aunt Mary asked if we should be
likely to meet Lord Lane, as she had heard Jimmy
talk so often of his friend Montie that she quite
longed to know him. She loves a lord, poor Aunt
Mary, and her face fell several inches when Jimmy
answered that Montie was a very retiring chap, shy
with ladies, and might make a point of keeping out
of the way. When we got home to the hotel I had
such a start. The Honourable John's letter was
gone out of the rack. I made sure that all would now
be over between the Napier and me, unless I could get
so far away with it that he'd sooner hire another than

252 The Lightning Conductor

follow up his; and anyway, if we disappeared he
wouldn't know where to find us. I suppose that was
very bad and sly of me, wasn't it? I sent word to
Brown that we'd start at nine o'clock next morning;
and wasn't it a joke on me, after we'd been on the
road for a while I told him what had happened, and
it turned out that he'd taken the letter to re- address
to his master?

Just before we started Jimmy said he'd had a wire
from Lord Lane that his car was waiting for him at
the garage in the Boulevard Gambetta at Nice, and
we went there after our splendid drive from Cannes,
as Brown knew about the place, and thought it would
be convenient to leave our Napier there.

We sent our luggage by cab to our hotel, lunched
at a delightful restaurant, and in the afternoon, said
Jimmy gaily, "I'll race you to Monte and back with
my Panhard." I knew in a minute what he meant,
but Aunt Mary thought he was talking about his
everlasting Lord Lane, and was so disappointed to
find it was only Monte Carlo. His Montie, he ex-
plained, was seedy and confined to bed but he
hoped we wouldn't mention this before Brown, as
Lord Lane didn't want his friend Jack Winston to
hear that he had come to the Riviera without letting
him know.

So after lunch we started away from glittering,
flowery blue and white and golden Nice by the most
glorious coast road for Monte Carlo, But you know
it well, dear Dad. I suppose there can be nothing
more beautiful on earth. And Monte Carlo is beau-
tiful; but somehow its beauty doesn't seem real and

The Lightning Conductor 253

wholesome and natural, does it? It's like a mag-
nificently handsome woman who is radiant at night,
and doesn't look suitable to morning light, because
then you see that her hair and eyelashes are dyed and
her complexion cleverly made up. If Monte Carlo
could be concentrated and condensed into the form
of a real woman, I think she would be the kind who
uses lots of scent and doesn't often take a bath.

We wandered about among the shops and saw the
most lovely things, but somehow I didn't "feel to
want" any of them, as my nurse used to say. I
couldn't help associating all the smart hats and
dresses and jewels in the windows with the terrible
hawk faces painted to look like doves, which kept
passing us in the streets or the Casino gardens, in-
stead of thinking whether the things would be pretty
on me.

Jimmy knows "Monte" very well, and was in-
clined to swagger about his knowledge. There's one
thing which I am compelled to admit that he can do
— order a dinner. He took us to a restaurant, led
aside the head waiter, talked with him for a few min-
utes, and announcing that dinner would be ready
when we wanted it, pioneered us across to "the
rooms." I'd seen so many pictures of the Casino
that it didn't come upon me as a surprise. The first
thing that struck me- was the overpowering deadness
of the air, which felt as if generations of people had
breathed all the oxygen out of it, and the ominous,
muffled silence, broken only by the sharp chink!
chink! of the croupiers' rakes as they pulled in the
money.

254 The Lightning Conductor

Jimmy insisted on staking a louis for me and an-
other for Aunt Mary, who was enraptured when she
won thirteen louis, and would have given up dinner
to go on playing if she hadn't lost her winnings and
more besides.

When we sat down to our table at the restaurant
she was quite depressed, but everything was so
bright and gay that she soon cheered up. Our
tablecloth was strewn all over with roses and huge
bluey-purple violets, and the dinner was pluperfect.
There was a great coming and going of overdressed
women and rather loud young men, which amused
me, but I think it would soon pall. I can't imagine
any feeling of rest or peace at Monte Carlo, not even
in the gardens. To stop long in the place would be
like always breathing perfume or eating spice.

We had finished dinner, and Jimmy was payin?
the bill (I couldn't help seeing that it was of enor-
mous length), when the scraping of chairs behind
us advertised that a new party had arrived at the
table back of ours. A noisy, loud-talking party it
was — all men, by the voices, and one of those voices
sounded remotely familiar. The owner of it seemed
to be telling an amusing story, which had been in-
terrupted by entering the restaurant and taking
seats. "Well, she simply jumped at it like a trout
at a mayfly," the man was saying, as I sat wonder-
ing where I'd heard the voice before. "I couldn't
help feeling a bit of a beast to impose on Yankee
innocence. But all's fair in love and motor-cars.
This was the most confounded thing ever designed;

The Lightning Conductor 255

a kind of ironmonger's shop on wheels. And the
girl was deuced pretty "

The word "motor-car" brought it all back, and
in a flash I crossed Europe from the restaurant in
Monte Carlo to the village hotel at Cobham. I
looked round and into the face of Mr. Ceoil-Lanstown.

Aunt Mary looked too, for the bill was paid, and
we were getting up to go. Our eyes met in the
midst of his sentence; the man half rose, but dropped
down again with a silly smile, and I gave him one of
those elaborate glances that begin with a person's
boots and work slowly up to the necktie. Just as
we were sweeping past Aunt Mary said in a loud
aside to me, "Did you ever see such a creature?
And I took him for a duke." I think he heard.

In the Casino gardens we saw the moon rise out
of the sea. and never shall I forget the glory of it.
But just the very beauty of everything made me
feel sad. So stupid of me. I really don't think I
can be well lately. I must take a tonic or a nerve
pill. We went back to Nice for the night, and next
morning we drove to Mentone, where I decided that
I would rather stay for a long time than anywhere
else on the Riviera. It is just the sweetest, dearest
little picture-place, with the natural, country peace-
fulness that others lack, and yet there's all the gaiety
and life of a town. We drove to it along the upper
road, which is almost startlingly magnificent I
asked Brown to go slowly, so that we might sip the
scenery instead of bolting it. Though the Napier
could have gone romping up the steep road out of
Nice to the Observatory, and on to quaint La Tur-

256 The Lightning Conductor

bie, I chose a pace of six or seven miles an hour,
often stopping at picturesque corners to drink in
sapphire draughts of sea and sky. Coming this way
from Nice to Mentone we skipped Monte Carlo al-
together, only looking down from La Turbie on its
roofs, on the glittering Casino, and the gloomy,
rock-set castle of Monaco.

And, oh, by the way, Jimmy wasn't with us on
that drive, nor has he joined us yet, though he
threatens to (if that word isn't too ungracious) a
little farther on in Italy. He stayed behind in Nice
to take care of Lord Lane. Aunt Mary thinks that
shows such a sweet disposition; but I'm not sure.
I believe that Montie is a marquis.

"We stopped near Mentone, at Cap Martin, which
of course you don't know, as it's rather new. And
it was lovely there, up high on a hill, among sweet-
smelling pines. It was pleasant to be alone with
Aunt Mary again, and I was nicer to her than I have
been, I'm afraid, since Pau and Jimmy. I should
have loved to stay a long while (and it would be
jolly to come back for the carnival, though I don't
suppose we shall), but there was such a thrill in the
thought of Italy being near that I grew restless.
Italy! Italy! I heard the name ringing in my ears
like the "horns of elfland."

Now we are in it — Italy, I mean, not elfland,
though it seems much the same to unsophisticated
me for mystery and colour; and it is good to have
warm-hearted Christmas for our first day. The one
jarring note in the Italian "entrance music" was at
the frontier. I think I wrote you how. when we

The Xightning Conductor 257

landed at Dieppe from England, about a hundred
years ago, I had to pay a deposit to the custom-
house for the right to take my car into France.
That money I should have got back at Mentone on
leaving the country if the late-lamented Dragon had
still been in existence, but as it vanished in smoke
and flame the money has vanished too. Brown,
however (or, rather, Brown's master), paid a similar
deposit on the Napier, and passing the French cus-
tom-house on the outskirts of Mentone, the Light-
ning Conductor asked my permission to stop, that
he might present Mr. Winston's papers and get the
money back to send to England.

So far, so good; but it was dusk when we left the
Cap Martin (as we'd spent the day in exploring
Mentone), and the custom-house people have de-
tained us some time; it was dark, cloudy, and windy
when we moved on again towards Italy. A douanier
mounted by Brown's side (I was with Aunt Mary
in the tonneau) to conduct us to the last French post,
where we dropped him; and in few yards farther
we were in Italy. Maybe you remember that the
frontier is marked by a wild chasm, cleft in the high
mountains which hurl themselves down to the very
margin of the sea. Over the splendid chasm is the
Pont St. Louis, and through the very middle of the
stone bridge runs the invisible "frontier line."

I thought I saw a sentry-box on the Italian side,
but it was too dark to be sure; and one has to go
a good way up the steep mountain road before one
reaches the office of the douane. Here Brown pulled
up, as two slouching men in blue-grey overcoats,

258 The Lightning Conductor

with rifles slung over their backs, came forward to
meet us. Our Lightning Conductor is always very
courteous in dealing with foreign officials. He says
it "smooths things"; and now, seeing that the men
intended to stop us, he politely expressed the wish
to pass, offering to pay whatever deposit was de-
manded. Though I have only the smallest smat-
tering of Italian, I could understand pretty well
what followed. The men refused to let us pass.
Brown argued the matter; he produced a pass-
port, which the two men inspected by the light
of a lantern. They appeared impressed, but still
refused us passage, saying that the office was closed
for the night, that the chief had gone, and that
there was no one who could make out the necessary
papers. "But it is monstrous! " cried Brown. "Is
this Italian hospitality? Do you suggest that the
ladies should remain here on the road till morn-
ing? " The douaniers shrugged their shoulders.
"There are plenty of good hotels in Mentone," said
one. "Go back there."

"No," said Brown, "I will not go back. Where
does the chief of the bureau live? " The douaniers
refused to tell. Clearly they did not want a "wig-
ging" for letting loose an imperious Englishman
upon their chief, reposing after his dinner. By
this time an interested crowd of ten or twelve persons
had assembled, their shadowy forms seeming to rise
out of the ground. I heard a voice in French whis-
per into my ear, "I am of France, and all these
Italians are pigs. The clief de douane lives in
Mortola, the first village up the road"; and before

The Lightning Conductor 259

I could look round to thank him, the friendly French-
man was swallowed up in darkness. I called Brown
and gave him the news. He asked if we minded
being left alone while he went to fetch the chief,
saying we should be quite safe in charge of the
douaniers; and on our agreeing strode off up the
steep road, one of the guards immediately padding
silently after him. We sat and waited perhaps half
an hour on the threshold of Italy, our lamps casting
their rays into the country we were forbidden to
enter, when I heard Brown's voice and the sound
of footsteps. By some persuasion he had induced
the chef de douane to return with him. The office
doors were thrown open, the gas was lighted, the
necessary papers were made out, the deposit paid,
and then, at Brown's invitation, the agreeable official
mounted into the car, and we ran quickly up the hill
to his house.

It was a thrilling drive from the frontier to
Bordighera. A great wind coming salt off the sea
was moaning along the face of the mountains, com-
pletely drowning the comforting hum of our motor.
The road mounted up and up, terrific gusts striking
the car as it came out into exposed places. Far
below we heard the thunder of mighty waves dashing
on the rock. Then we began to descend a steep and
twisting road that led up presently to low ground,
not much above the sea, where the wind shrieked
down the funnel of a river-bed. Then up again
along another face of cliff under cyclopean walls of
masonry, and down a sudden shoot between houses
into the old, old town of Ventimiglia; across a river

260 The Lightning Conductor

and a plain, to be pulled up presently by a very
dangerous obstacle — a huge beam of wood, unlighted,
and swung across the road to guard a level crossing.
Our great acetylene eye, glaring ahead, gave Brown
ample warning, and we slowed down, then stopped,
while a train thundered past. Very deliberately a
signalman presently came to push the barrier aside,
and we darted on through a long, straggling village,
turned away from the sea, found a large iron gate
with a lamp over it, standing hospitably open, and
twisting through a fairy-like garden studded with
gigantic palms, drew up in a flood of light that
poured from the door of a large white hotel. To walk
into the big, bright hall, to hear pleasant English
voices, to see nice men and pretty girls dressed for
dinner and waiting for the stroke of the gong, was an
extraordinary contrast to the roaring blackness of the
night outside. Everyone turned to stare at us as we
came in masked and goggled like divers.

This morning I waked up and looked out of my
window a little before seven. It was just sunrise
and the wind had died. Under my eyes lay the
garden, lovely as Eden, garlands of roses looped
from orange trees to palms; banks of heliotrope, and
sweetness unutterable. Then, a waving sea of palms,
with here and there the glow of a scarlet roof, and
beyond the sea. The rising sun shone on it and
on the curved line of coast, with Monte Carlo and
Mentone gleaming like pearl. Floating up on the
horizon I saw a shadowy blue shape of an island,
hovering like a ghost, and as I looked it vanished
suddenly as a broken bubble, leaving the sea blank.

The Lightning Conductor 261

I thought it must have been a mirage; but by-and-
by a soft-speaking, fawn-eyed maid called Apollonia
told me it was Corsica, which only shows itself
sometimes early in the morning when the sun is at
a certain height and usually after a storm.

We breakfasted in our sitting-room, with delicious
honey for our crisp rolls, and afterwards, when I went
downstairs to send your cable, I found the hall smell-
ing like a forest of balsam firs. It was decorated
for Christmas, and the whole hotel seemed full of
a sort of joyous, Christmas stir, so that it was more
like a jolly, big country-house than a hotel.

Then I found out that this hotel is famous for
its Christmas celebration. Everyone stopping there
was supposed to be the landlord's guest at a wonder-
ful dinner, a regular feast, with dozens of courses,
ending up with crackers, which we all pulled. Last
of all the dining-room was darkened, and a long
procession of waiters glided in bearing illuminated
ices — green, crimson, gold, and rose. We clapped
our hands and laughed, just like children, and the
landlord had to make a little speech. Altogether
everything was so friendly and Christmasy that the
most gloomy misanthrope could not have felt home-
sick. I supposed when dinner was over that the
special festivities were at an end. But no, quite the
contrary. Everyone trooped into a huge picture-
panelled recreation-room, which had been the scene
of secret preparation all day, and there was a giant
Christmas-tree, sparkling with pretty decorations,
and heavy with presents for each person in the hotel,
all provided by the landlord. We drew them with

262 The Lightning Conductor

numbers, and I got a charming inlaid box with a
secret opening; Aunt Mary had a little silver vase.
There was music, too; harps and violins. I was
sorry that poor Brown was cut off from all the fun.
But I did give him a present. You know he refuses
tips, so I couldn't offer him money; but the other
day at Cannes he was looking rather worried, and
it turned out that something — I didn't understand
exactly what, for he was rather vague in his answers
— had happened to his watch. I didn't say much
then, but in Monte Carlo I bought him quite a
decent one for fifty dollars (he really does deserve
it), and gave it to him this morning with a "merry
Christmas." You've no idea how pleased he was.
He seemed quite touched.

There! a bell somewhere is striking midnight.
Good-bye, dearest. My thoughts have been full of
you all day.

Your

MOLLY.

JIMMY PAYNE TO CHAUNCEY RANDOLPH

GRAND HOTEL, ROME, December 27.

Dear Mr. Randolph,

I find myself in a difficult position, but I am
going to take the bull by the horns and write to
you of certain things which seem to me of import-
ance. I trust to your friendship and your knowledge
of my feelings and desires towards Molly to excuse
me if you consider that I am being officious. You
will understand when I have explained that I cannot
hope to make her see the matter in its true light;
but you, as a man and her father, will do so, and
will comprehend that my motive is for her protection.

I have thanked you already for answering my
letter, in which I begged that you would let me know
in which part of Europe Molly was travelling, and
she has told me that she wrote you of our meeting
at Pau. I reached there a couple of days sooner
than she and Miss Kedison did. In fact, I saw
their arrival in the famous automobile of whose
adventures you must have heard much. The min-
ute my eyes lighted upon the chauffeur I felt an in-
stinctive distrust of the man, and I have learned
through experience not to disregard the warnings

263

264 The Lightning Conductor

of my instinct. It has served me more than one
good turn in the street when the markets were
wobbling. Now I have been a good deal chaffed
about a resemblance to Sherlock Holmes, the great
detective of fiction, but I acknowledge and am proud
of that resemblance. I venture to think that it is
not wholly confined to externals. A certain detec-
tive instinct was born in me. It began to show itself
when I was a little boy at school, and since then I
have trained and cultivated it, as a kind of higher
education of the brain. In several instances I have
been able to expose frauds, which, but for the purely
impersonal, scientific interest I took in the affairs,
might have remained undetected. In these experi-
ments I have made enemies of course; but what
matter?

The interest I feel in the case I am about to lay
bare to you is not, I confess, purely impersonal.
But I hope under the circumstances you will think
none the less of me for that.

My first distant glimpse of the man Brown created,
as I have said, an unfavourable impression upon my
mind. I thought that he had a swaggering air of
conceit and self-importance extremely unbecoming
in a man of his class. He had the air of thinking
himself equal to his betters, which is a dangerous
thing in a person entrusted with the care of ladies.
My impression was confirmed by some of the tales
which Molly told me of her automobile experiences,
not only quite unconscious that they militated
against her chauffeur, but apparently believing them
to his credit. I began to fear that the fellow was one

The Lightning Conductor 265

to take advantage of the trust placed in him by two
unprotected women, whom he doubtless has guessed
to be well provided with money. My definite sus-
picions went at first no further than this, though
there was a kind of detective premonition in my
mind that more might remain to be found out. I
might have confined myself to tacit disapproval,
however, or a word of advice to Molly, and perhaps
one stern warning to the man, had I not gone into
the golf club at Pau on our last day there. To my
intense astonishment I saw Brown on the links
attempting to get members to play with him by
passing himself off as a gentleman. He wore good
clothes, and acted his part fairly well — well enough,
perhaps to deceive the unobservant. But he is not
the sort of person I should ever mistake for a gentle-
man. I went up to him, and very quietly ordered
him off the links, threatening to expose him pub-
licly. But he whined for mercy, and I, in a moment
of weak good nature, let him off, on his promise to
go at once. I inquired, however, of the steward what
name he had given on seeking admittance, and was
startled to find that he had passed himself off as
the Honourable John Winston, his late master and
the owner of the car which Molly is now using. As
I had bound myself to keep silence, I did not betray
him, but the fact just discovered confirmed my
distrust of the man as a dangerous and unscrupulous
person.

For Molly's sake 1 felt that I must begin inves-
tigation, so as to be able in the end to expose
Brown a»d let her see him in his real character;

266 The Lightning Conductor

but for several reasons not necessary to trouble
you with it was essential to proceed with extreme
caution.

It was unbearable to me, knowing even the little
I did know at that time of the man's character to
allow Molly and Miss Kedison to go wandering over
the country alone with him. I feared that he might
compromise them in some way, or even resort to
blackmail, and with this danger before my mind,
I offered to accompany the ladies on their car to
the Riviera. I made the suggestion to Miss Kedison,
not to Molly, and hinted to her something concern-
ing my motives, cautioning her at the same time
that silence was vitally important until I could give
her leave to speak. You may think that I was
taking a good deal on myself; but I have a great
regard for you, as well as an unfortunately deep
affection for Molly, and as I have made many in-
timate friends among the highest in the land, all over
the Continent, as in England, I felt that my presence
in the car might be especially helpful.

During the first day or two of our journey I caught
Brown in several audacious lies. He was insolent to
me, evidently afraid that I meant to lose him his
berth, and inclined to be so familiar with the ladies,
Molly particularly, that my suspicions of him were
roused to fever heat. I began to see that his ambi-
tions tended higher than I had at first supposed,
and — I hope you will forgive my frankness — I should
not be surprised if some day before long Molly should
have a startling awakening.

I questioned her carefully as to what Brown had

The Lightning Conductor 267

said to her of his late master's movements, and
it appeared that, according to the chauffeur, the
Honourable John Winston had returned to England,
leaving Brown to hire out and drive his automobile.
This seemed strange to me, and I asked myself if
it were possible that the fellow could have contrived
to steal the car, and be using it for his own purposes,
taking the money derived from its hire for himself.
One thing which encouraged this deduction was the
extremely low rent asked for the vehicle and the
small wages demanded by Brown. But it was at
Toulon that a still more sinister idea was forced into
my mind by a startling incident to which I will draw
your attention.

You will very likely have heard from Molly that
owing to a side-slip which might have happened to
anyone in driving an automobile, we had an upset
by the roadside, and in common politeness I was
compelled to obey Miss Kedison's request to remain
with her at a small village, some miles from Toulon,
while Molly went on to see a doctor about an injury
to her wrist, Brown being her attendant. When
Miss Kedison and I arrived at Toulon on the car
next day, it was decided to stay the night there
rather than go on so late. I saw Brown, who was
working outside the hotel at the automobile, take
money out of his pocket to pay a man who had
been helping him with the repairs. Something small
dropped on the ground as he did so, unknown to
Brown. When he had moved away, I stooped and
picked it up. It was a French pawn-ticket for a
pledged watch, dated the previous night. I deter-

268 The Lightning Conductor

mined, in the interest of my investigations, to visit
the pawnbroker's, which I did; and giving up the
ticket, said I had called to redeem the pledge.
Imagine my sensations when I saw a magnificent gold
repeater, with the monogram "J. W." upon it in
small diamonds. The conclusion was obvious, for
the watch was not one which would be given by
a master even to the most valued servant. I paid
something like two hundred and sixty francs to
redeem the repeater, and justified such a proceeding
to myself by the argument that the watch had
assuredly been stolen, and that my action was the
most certain way of preserving it for the owner and
earning that owner's gratitude, if he still existed.
Those last four words, which I have underscored,
will enlighten you as to the doubts now materialising
in my mind. In fact, I believe this chauffeur a man
capable of anything.

On returning to the hotel, with the Honourable
Mr. Winston's watch in my pocket, I made a few
inquiries as to Brown's behaviour the night before;
I learned that he had appeared in the salle d manger
for dinner, in an irreproachable evening suit which
in some way he must have obtained from his master.
Perhaps I ought not to repeat what else I learned, as
I do not like to tell tales out of school, but I think
it is only right you should know that Molly allowed
this impostor to sit at the table with her, as if he had
been an equal instead of a servant.

I positively dared not let Miss Kedison into the
secret of what had happened, but I hinted to her
that I had had good reason to think less well of

The Lightning Conductor 269

Brown even than before. It was arranged that we
should induce Molly to hurry on to Cannes, where
Lady Brighthelmston (pronounced "Brighton"),
the mother of my friend the Honourable John Win-
ston, was supposed to be staying. I wished to find
out from her when she had last heard from her son,
and if she were absolutely assured of his present
safety. I also intended to show her the watch, and
put her in possession of all the deductions and details
I had been able to pick up. This once done, Brown's
exposure by Lady Brighthelmston and subsequent
dismissal by Molly would be only a question of
hours.

Unfortunately, however, Lady Brighthelmston had
left Cannes for Rome when we arrived; nevertheless,
one more proof of the chauffeur's duplicity came into
my hands there. A letter which had been left in
the rack for the Honourable John Winston, by his
mother, was secretly taken out by Brown. And the
fact that Lady Brighthelmston was expecting her
son to join her on his automobile does not look as if
poor Jack were in England and had voluntarily left
his car with the chauffeur. (

Altogether the affair appears ominous for my
friend, and the thought that Molly and Miss Kedi-
son are perpetually at the mercy of this unscrupu-
lous wretch, in a strange country, is maddening to
me as it will be to you when you receive this letter.
When they left the Riviera for Italy, I was obliged
to remain behind for .\ day with a sick friend, but
followed as soon as possible on my Panhard. Ow-
ing, however, to unforeseen events and one or two

270 The Lightning Conductor

small accidents, I was delayed, and unable to catch
them up as I had intended. Finally, as Brown was
probably hurrying on with the express intention of
making it impossible for me to overtake the party.
I determined to abandon my car and proceed by
rail to Rome, their destination. My idea was to
reach that city before they could do so, and see
Lady Brighthelmston as I had planned to do at
Cannes, so that the police could be ready if neces-
sary to arrest Brown immediately on his arrival. I
arrived on the day expected and called at the hotel
to which Lady Brighthelmston's letters were to be
forwarded from Cannes. But on account of the un-
usual cold and bad weather, she had suffered from
neuralgia, and had gone on with her friends, after
less than a week's stay, to Naples, with the idea
that she might visit Sicily later.

Having gone so far, I am not to be turned back.
I love Molly far too well to desert her, and some day,
when she finds out all I have done for her sake, per-
haps she will appreciate me better than she has up
to the present. I cannot tell her myself, but it may
be that you will think fit to let her know. I mean
to follow Lady Brighthelmston to Naples, or even
farther if it be necessary, for writing the information
I have to give might do more harm than good to
everyone concerned. I must be on the spot; but
very unluckily I cannot be there for some days to
come. The weather in Rome is really awful, and I
have contracted something which I am afraid is
influenza. With the best intentions, I cannot go to
the rescue until the doctor gives me leave. I shall

The Lightning Conductor 271

probably still be here when Molly arrives. Mean-
while, my dear Mr. Randolph, I have thought best to
put you on your guard.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,

J. F. PAYNE.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

HOTEL DE RUSSIE, ROME,

January 2.

Darling Dad,

Forgive me for that inadequate little note
written yesterday to wish you a Happy New Year;
"but short as it was, there was enough love in it to
make the letter double postage. We have been work-
ing so hard at pleasure since that I haven't had time
for anything except the various cables which from
day to day I have flung to you from our chariot of
fire as we sped half-way down the long leg of Italy
— that's pink on my schoolroom map at home. Some-
how, I've always thought of Italy as being pink, ever
since I first hunted it out on the map; and it is still
gloriously couleur de rose to the eyes of my body and
mind.

How splendid it is not to be disappointed in some-
thing that you've looked forward to all your life, isn't
it? But I don't think I am the kind of girl who is
disappointed in real things — nature's real things, I
mean. People have often said to me, "Oh, you will
be disappointed in Europe, if you look forward to it
so much." But I believe such creatures have no
imagination. With imagination you have the glamour

272

The Lightning Conductor 273

of the past and all the wonderful things that have
happened in a place, as well as the mere beauty of
the present. But then, without imagination one must
just expect to have one's poor little soul go bare, and
to live on all the "cold pieces " of life, never to taste
the nectar and ambrosia of the gods; never to know
the thrill of sympathy, or any other thrill that isn't
purely physical.

I'm intoxicated with all I have seen and am seeing
— which must excuse the harangue. And I'm in-
toxicated with the joy of driving the car. Lately I
have been rivalling the Lightning Conductor, for my
wrist is quite well again. The microbe of auto-
mobilism has entered into my blood. Yes, I'm
speaking literally; I'm sure there's such a microbe,
and that he's a brave beast. I should like to see him
in your big microscope. Perhaps I'll bring him
home for the purpose.

It has become the greatest joy I have ever known
to get all I possibly can out of noble Balzac ; to urge
Balzac uphill as fast as I can; to drive Balzac down-
hill as fast as I dare; to manoeuvre Balzac in and
out of traffic with all my skill and nerve. But you
mustn't be a bit uneasy about me. Brown is always
at my elbow to "warn, to comfort, to command," and
I know that he won't let me do anything I oughtn't
or let any harm come of it if I did.

The worst of driving an automobile yourself, when
you've really got that microbe in your blood, is that
you don't see quite as much of the country as you
would otherwise, and that you hate to stop, even
when there are wonderful things to see. But then it

274 The Lightning Conductor

used to be almost the same in both ways when one
lived, breathed, and moved for bicycles. Do you
remember how I would talk of nothing else, and
made "bike slang" answer for all human nature's
daily needs? You were annoyed one night when I
took your arm as we were walking together, and told
you you were "geared too high for me."

If my life depended now on giving accurate details
of the country through which we've been driving, I
should have to resign myself to die. I only know
that I've never been so happy, or seen half so much
that was beautiful and (as that Mrs. Bennett, who
wanted to marry you so badly, was always saying)
" soul-satisfying."

Well, we left Bordighera the day after Christmas.
Brown called it "Boxing Day," but I didn't under-
stand what he meant till he explained. "We went
spinning along the Riviera di Ponente, towards
Genoa la Superba, where we were to halt for the
night. Perhaps — just perhaps — a true critic of beauty,
whose blood had cooled with much experience, would
say that the Italian Riviera road wasn't quite equal
to the French between Cannes and Mentone. But
it's Italy, Italy! And there's the difference of charm
between the two (as I said to Brown) that there is
between a magnificent young French Duchesse,
confident of her own charms, with generations of
breeding and wealth behind her, and a lovely, peach-
tinted, simple-hearted Italian peasant girl. How
rich the colour is everywhere! — and yet it never
seems to dazzle the eye. I suppose it's the wonder-
ful atmosphere that harmonises everything. And

The Lightning Conductor 275

then the lovely, softening effect of the years; the
moss, the lichen; the endearing dilapidation! So
many things appeal to your heart as you pass through
Italy. Oh I don't know how to describe it; but
luckily you've been here, and we generally feel things
alike, you and I; so you'll know what I mean. Poor
little pathetic houses, painted red, blue, or yellow!
You laugh at them, and want to cry over them, and
love them, too. And the reds, yellows, and blues are
like no other reds, yellows, and blues in the world.
Fancy, if we had houses like that in our new land!
How frightful they would be! We would want the
painters to be put in prison for their crime.

I can tell you this: That first day of ours was like
hurrying through a whole gallery of Turner's paint-
ings. I love Turner, and I often wonder if my world
isn't as different from many people's old grey worlds
as his was!

Another thing, we had become phenomenal. That
is, we were in a motor-car-less region. Ours was the
only car, whereas on the other side of Mentone we
met a rival every ten minutes. I do get cause and
effect so mixed up. Aren't there many automobiles
in Italy because there are such lots of places where
you can't buy petrol; or can't you buy petrol because
people won't go in automobiles?

We went flashing along past pretty little Ospe-
daletti, with its big white casino, and into gay and
colourful San Remo, where we bought inferior petrol
and paid twice as much for it as in France. I
wonder if any small watering-place ever had as many
attractive-looking hotels in it as San Remo? If I

276 The Lightning Conductor

were staying there, I should weep because I couldn't
live in them all at once. But one would be obliged
to have about thirty astral bodies to go round, and
each one would have to be a well-dressed astral body.
That would come expensive; or do astral bodies
exude frocks, so to speak?

I insisted on stopping for a few moments within
sight of Taggia, because a great friend of mine lived
there, or rather, the author of his being. His name
was " Doctor Antonio," and he existed in the pages
of a book written by a famous Italian, John Ruffini.
Brown gave me the book for a Christmas present,
apologising for the liberty; but, you see, it was all
about Bordighera, and he thought I would like to
have it. So I did, for it is one of the most enchant-
ing stories I have ever read, though written in an
old-fashioned style, and also with a pretty little
heroine who was so old-fashionedly meek I could
have shaken her. I sat up nearly all night reading
the book, and oh, how I cried! There never was
such a splendid fellow in real life as Doctor Antonio,
except, of course, you. And, do you know, if Brown
had been born a gentleman I think he might have
turned out something like that. I liked Taggia for
Doctor Antonio's sake; and I admired Porto Mau~
rizio on its haughty promontory. It towers in my
recollection just as the real Porto Maurizio towers
above the indigo -blue sea, out of which it seems to
grow.

If it hadn't been for Brown, I'm ashamed to say
I shouldn't have known much about the Ligurian
Alps. Do you, Dad? They're frightfully interest-

The Lightning Conductor 277

ing, a sort of "bed rock " of Italian history. Dear me,
how ignorant one can be, when all the while one is
quite pleased with oneself as an Educated Person,
with a capital E and P.

Alassio I thought a dear little place. You stopped
there when you were coaching, in your honeymoon
days. How little you dreamed then that your
daughter would go tearing through on a motor? It
has a nicer beach than any of the rival towns we
saw; no wonder the Italians love to bathe there!
Brown told me interesting stories about the enor-
mous, lofty brick towers of Albenza, that seemed to
nod so drowsily over the narrow, shadowed streets;
Savona was too much modernised to please me,
though the name had chimed alluringly in my ears;
and with Pra we were treading on the trailing skirts
of Genoa. Jimmy Payne had told Aunt Mary that
it was nicer to stay all night in Pegli than in Genoa,
because there were large gardens and a splendid
view; but Brown said, if we would trust him, he
would take us to a hotel in the midst of Genoa, with
a large garden and a splendid view. So we did trust
him — at least I did. And oh, Dad, I had my first
experience in driving through real, enormous city
traffic in Genoa! I would try it; and I succeeded
beyond my dreams. I have got things to a fine
point now, so that I manipulate the clutch and
throttle (don't they sound murderous?) almost auto-
matically; and there's something quite magical in
the ease with which one can bring the car instantly
down to a crawling walk, which wouldn't disconcert
a tortoise, behind a string of carts, or at a touch dart

278 The Lightning Conductor

ahead of the string, and leave the swiftest horse as if
he were standing still.

There must be comparatively few automobiles in
Genoa, or else ours beat the record for beauty; for
people in the long, straight, narrow old streets lined
with palaces, or the wide, stately, newer streets of
splendid shops (where they showed everything on
earth except the Genoa velvet I had always yearned
to see on its native heath) turned to stare at us.
But oh, perhaps it was only because a girl was
driving! Anyway, the girl didn't disgrace herself.
You would have been proud to see her daringly
steer down an old sloping causeway into the Garden
of Eden — I mean, the garden of our hotel. Anyway,
the girl was proud of herself when the Lightning
Conductor said, "Brava! No one could have done
that better. "

Brown was quite right about coming on to Genoa.
It was a lovely hotel, with quite a tropical garden
that had a sort of private Zoo of its own; jolly little
beasts and birds in cages, which Aunt Mary and
I fed next morning, when we'd had a delicious rest
after a long day. After an early breakfast we went
sight-seeing; and isn't the Campo Santo the very
quaintest thing you ever saw? I don't think I could
have helped laughing at some of the extraordinary
marble ladies (with hoop skirts and bustles, and
embroidered granite ruffles, and stone roses in their
bonnets, kissing the hands of angel husbands with
mutton-chop whiskers and elastic-sided boots; or
knocking at the doors of forbidding-looking tombs,
with Death as a sort of unliveried footman saying,

The Lightning Conductor 279

"Not at home") if it hadn't been for the mourners
coming to visit their dead. Oh, the pathos of them,
with their sad, dark eyes, their heavy black draperies,
and the flowers they were bringing to tell their loved
ones that they were never forgotten! Instead of
laughing, I came near crying. But the two moods
are often so near together that one makes mistakes
in their identity. The only fine and simple thing in
the huge, strange place was the tomb of Mazzini.

I was tremendously impressed with the harbour at
Genoa. It seemed so proud, as if Italy need have no
shame to be represented by it, in the presence of all
the crowding ships from all the ports of the world.

The morning was still young and fair when we
rushed away along the Riviera di Levante; and even
Aunt Mary was congratulating herself that we were
on an automobile and not a train. For a while our
road ran side by side with the rail; and whenever
the coast was at its most exquisite, with some jut-
ting headland over which we could skim like a
bird, the wretched train had to go burrowing through
the earth like a mole, all the glory and beauty shut
out in murky darkness. I counted about fifty tun-
nels between Genoa and Spezzia. When we'd escaped
from the suburbs of Genoa, and the last tall houses
which made you afraid it might be their day to fall,
we came upon visions as lovely as any we had seen
in the French Riviera. Those gleaming towns set
on curving bays of sapphire will always seem like
dream- towns to me, unless I go back and prove their
reality; especially Rapallo, which was the most
beautiful of all. Jennie Harborough and her mother

280 The Lightning Conductor

spent all one winter there, I remember their telling
me, and were sorry to go at the end. They went
because it was rather cheap, but stayed because it
was more lovely than the expensive places. From
Rapallo, through Zoagli to Chiavari, we were high
above the sea, winding through ravine after ravine,
but at Chiavari the best of the coast was behind us;
and at Sestri, much to our disgust, we had to turn
our backs on the sea. Still, it was delicious mount-
ing up among the foothills of the Apennines by the
Col di Baracca, and running down to Spezzia, lying
like a pretty, lazy woman, looking out upon the green
gulf named after it. We had lunch in a cool, agree-
able hotel to which I felt grateful because of its pretty
name — the Croce di Malta. I did want to go and
see Shelley's house at Lerici, but — well, I saw its
photograph instead; for there was our Napier "sleep-
ing with one valve open," luring us on, on under the
shadow of the Apennines. One does feel a wretch
always "going on" instead of lingering, but that
microbe I told you about gives one a fever. Think
of running through Lucca! But, if we did what we
planned in the day we must sacrifice something, so we
sacrificed Lucca to Pisa. The very name, before our
arrival, made me a child again, looking through the
big stereoscope in your study at the Leaning Tower,
or at the steel engraving in Finden's Landscape
Annual. But from the moment I saw it, like a
carving in ivory, reclining gracefully on the bosom
of a golden cloud, I forgot the stereoscope and the
Annual. In future I shall always see it against that
cloud of rosy sunset-gold.

The Lightning Conductor 281

I never knew how beautiful marble could be until
I came to Pisa and Rome. Somehow I had associated
Pisa with the Leaning Tower, and not with the Bap-
tistry. I knew it existed, and, vaguely, that it
was worth seeing; but Pisa meant the Leaning
Tower to me. Now I couldn't tell you which has
left the deeper impression. I'm not at all the same
girl that I was before I put Pisa and Rome into the
gallery of my mind. I must make myself a worthy
frame for such pictures as I am storing up now. I
have the feeling not only that I want to read better
books, hear more splendid music, and do more noble
things, but that I shall know how to appreciate more
clearly everything that is exalted or exalting. I
hope you won't think me sentimental to say that.

We stayed all night at a real Italian hotel on the
Lung Arno. Brown suggested it, thinking that we
might enjoy an experience thoroughly characteristic
of the country through which we were flying so fast.
Aunt Mary wasn't pleased with the idea at all, said
it would be horrid, and prophesied unspeakable
things; but, as usual, Brown proved to be right, and
she consented to admit it if I would promise not to
punish her with her own stock phrase — "I told you
so! " You would have laughed to see me con-
scientiously trying to eat maccaroni in the true
Italian way. I curled it round my fork beautifully,
but the hateful thing would uncurl again before I
could get it up to my mouth, and accidents happened.

I watched the Italians, too, pouring their wine
from the fat glass flasks swung in pivoted cradles.
They did it all with one hand, holding a goblet

282 The Lightning Conductor

between the thumb and second finger, and twisting
the index finger round the neck of the bottle to pull
it forward. It looked such a neat and simple trick
that I thought I could do likewise; but — well, it was
the reverse of neat when I did it, and the spotless
tablecloth was spotless no longer. Instead of glaring
at me for the mischief I had done, the head waiter
was all sympathy. How nice and Italian of him!

That night, lying between sheets that smelt of
lavender — only better than American or English
lavender — I lived through the day once more, seeing
ruined watch-towers set on hills, old grey monasteries
falling into beautiful decay, or apparitions of white
marble cathedrals. Then, over and over again, that
wonderful carved-ivory tower leaning against the
golden sky came back to me — so clean, so uninjured
by the reverent centuries, and the sound of the angel-
voiced echo in the Baptistry, and the strange shapes
of the dear beasts supporting the pulpit, just like I
used to picture the beasts in Revelations when I was
a little girl. Next morning I had another look at
the Leaning Tower before we started, and in a shop
I came across a delicious and beautifully written
book called In Tuscany, by the English Consul at
Leghorn, so I bought it, and now I know as much as
Brown does about the country through which we
passed during several perfect days.

I'm not sure, but I am being both brutal and banal
in saying that the rest of our journey to Rome was
comparatively uninteresting. Of course, nothing can
be really uninteresting in Italy, but I suppose those
first days had spoiled me. "We drove for mile after

The Lightning Conductor 283

mile through marshy land, where tall, melancholy
eucalyptus trees told their tale of a brave struggle
against malaria. All the windows and doors of the
signal cabins by the railway stations were protected
by wire gauze against mosquitoes, and we who have
spent summers on Staten Island know what that
means, don't we?

I think, if I were not in Rome, I could have
written you a better account of our flight through
Italy; but the Eternal City has blurred all other
impressions for me now, though I think afterwards
they will come back as clear and bright as ever.
Nevertheless, I'm not going to write you much about
Rome. It's too big for my pen, too mighty and too
marvellous. I can only feel. You have been here,
and Rome doesn't change. Only I wonder what you
felt when you first saw the Laocoon and the Apollo
Belvedere? I used to think I didn't quite appreciate
sculpture, but now I know it was because something
in me was waiting for the best, and refusing to be
satisfied with what was less than the best. Why, I
didn't even know what marble could be till I saw the
Laocoon. I had meant to do a good deal of sight-
seeing that day when I began with the Vatican ; but
I sat for hours in front of those writhing figures in
their eternal torture. I couldn't go away. The
statue seemed to belong to me, and I had found it
again, after searching hundreds and hundreds of
years. I wonder if I was once a princess in the
palace of the Caesars, in another state of existence,
and if in those days I used to stand and worship the
Laocoon? I shouldn't wonder a bit. And the Apollo

284 The Lightning Conductor

Belvedere! What a gentleman — what a perfect
gentleman he is! You will laugh at me for such
a thought. It seems commonplace, but it isn't.
Nobody's ever said it before. He's such a gentle-
man and so graciously beautiful that you know he
must be a god. I shouldn't have minded worshipping
him a bit. Paganism had its points.

I should love to come back to Rome on my wed-
ding trip if I were married to exactly the right man ;
but if he were not exactly right I should kill him;
whereas in ordinary places I might be able to stand
him well enough, as well as most women stand their
husbands. Speaking of men who aren't exactly right
reminds me of Jimmy Payne. He is here. He seems
to have a sort of instinct to tell him when one is
about to drive up to a hotel, and then he stations
himself in the door, expecting the blessing which
is for those who stand and wait. We made a sensa-
tion driving down the narrow Corso at the fashionable
hour, and Jimmy got some of the credit of it when
he stepped forward to welcome us. He had heard
me say that we would stop here, because I'd been
told it was the only hotel in Rome with a garden,
and was close to the Pincian; and Jimmy has such
a way of remembering things you say, if he thinks
it's to his advantage. His first appearance was
slightly marred, however, by a sneeze which, like
Lady Macbeth's etcetera spot, would "out" at the
precise moment of shaking hands. He says he got
influenza from the Duchessa di Something-or-Other,
upon whom he was obliged to call the instant he
arrived, or she would never have forgiven him; so of

The Lightning Conductor 285

course it's not quite so hard to bear as common,
second-class influenza. It appears that he was so
anxious to see "dear Lady Brighthelmston before
she could get away" that he shed his automobile at
Genoa, and hurried on by train, though whether on
receipt of a telegraphic bidding from her ladyship or
not I don't know. . Anyway, she didn't wait for him,
or else the influenza frightened her; for she has gone,
and apparently without leaving word for poor discon-
solate Jimmy. She was at his hotel, and left word
with the manager that she would wire when she was
settled in "some place where there was a little sun-
shine" for her letters to be forwarded. He is waiting
till that wire arrives.

Jimmy is "thick as thieves" with Aunt Mary, but
as frigid as a whole iceberg to poor Brown, if they
happen to run across each other. I do think, don't
you, Dad, that it shows shocking bad breeding to be
nasty to a person who, from the very nature of the
case, can't answer back? When I hear people speak-
ing rudely to servants I always set them down as
cads. Imagine marrying a man and then finding out
that he was a cad! One ought to be able to get a
divorce. The weather has, I suppose, been terrible
since we came to Rome; at least, I hear everyone in
our hotel grumbling, and certainly gardens haven't
been of much use to us. But I am in a mood not to
mind weather. I am in Rome. I say that over to
myself, and I read Lanciani and Hare, and then 1
don't know whether it rains or not. Besides, yester-
day was clear on purpose for me to walk in the
Pincian and Borghese Gardens. Brown had to go

286 The Lightning Conductor

with me because Aunt Mary was afraid there would
be another storm; and besides, some little English
ladies she has met in our hotel had invited her to
have tea with them in their bedroom. They make it
themselves with their own things, because then you
don't have to pay; and if there aren't enough cups
to go round among the ladies they've asked, they
take their tooth-brush glasses for themselves. And
they bring in custardy cakes in paper-bags and cream
in tiny pails which they hide in their muffs, and try to
look unconscious. There are a lot here like that,
and they stay all winter. None of them are married,
and they all do and say exactly the things you know
they will beforehand. Why, just to look at them
you feel sure they'd have tatting on their stays, and
make their own garters. But some of them are
titled, or if they're not they talk a great deal about
being "well connected"; and they do nothing on
weekdays but read novels, work in worsteds, and
play bridge with the windows hermetically sealed;
or on Sundays but go to the English church. Only
think, and they're in Rome!

I haven't wasted one minute since we came, but,
thank goodness, I'm not trying to "do" Rome scien-
tifically and exhaustively like so many poor wilted-
looking Americans I've met here. They think they
must see every picture in every gallery, and put at
least their noses inside every church; and then they
scribble things down in their note-books — things
which will do them just as much good afterwards as
Lizard Bill's writings on his slate when the ink
trickled over his nose, in Alice's Adventures. One

The Lightning Conductor 287

American lady in this hotel said her daughters had
dragged her about so much that she didn't know
what country she was in any more, except by the
postage stamps. If I were in her place I should lie
down to take a nap when I arrived in town, and say I
had seen the things when I went back to Fond du Lac ;
there's where she lived before her daughters took to
doing Paris in one day and London in two ; they told
me quite simply that was the time you needed to give.

Dad, we drove in the automobile along the Appian
Way. It sounds shocking, but it wasn't; it was
glorious. There is never anything jarring (I don't
mean that for a pun) about going into the midst of
old and wonderful things on a motor-car, for it is
wonderful too, and it has a dignity of its own — the
dignity of fine and perfect mechanism which seems
alive, like a splendid Pegasus or an obedient unicorn,
or some other strange legendary animal which you
are obliged to respect and marvel at.

And Brown took me into the Colosseum last night
— late — when the moon was rising out of torn black
clouds.

But I said I wasn't going to write about Rome,
and I won't — I vow I won't, not even about St.
Peter's. I think one ought to stop here ten days,
and see things all day long — just things you want to
see, not things you ought to see; or else linger for
months, and let everything soak into your soul. I
can't do the latter, this time, with the Napier waiting
— waiting; and so I'm making the best of the first.
Your reincarnated Roman Princess,

MOLLY.

FROM MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

PARKER'S HOTEL, NAPLES,

January 13.

You Dear,

I have seen Naples, but I don't wish to die.
Not that I should so much grudge dying after the
happy life you've given me, but there'd be such an
awful waste of time in staying dead when so much
is left to see. There's Capri, and there's Sicily almost
next door; and even a Saturday to Monday on Mars
wouldn't make up to me for missing them.

We put our hands to the plough, and came here
from Rome in six hours, only one hour more than
the fast (?) train takes. We didn't stop for lunch,
but kept ourselves up on beef lozenges, which were
nasty but supporting. We wanted to see how quickly
we could do it, and even Aunt Mary was excited.
She is much pleasanter without Jimmy, and we really
did have fun. It's an ill rain that doesn't temper the
dust to an automobile, so we blessed the weathef
which we had previously anathematised. After a
pouring night, it cleared before we started; and it
was one of the best days we have ever had. I remem-
bered heaps of things which had happened to me
when I was a Roman princess, two thousand years

288

The Lightning Conductor 289

ago, and felt just as if I were travelling in my chariot
from my father's palace in Rome to his villa, perhaps
in Baise. My only fear was that, in going so fast, we
should arrive at our destination so long before the
impedimenta that I should have to do without my
baths of asses' milk for several days; and where
would be my royal complexion?

It was six o'clock, and dark, when we came in
sight of something which made me cry out "Oh!"
It was a dull red light, high up in the sky, and a
dark shape, like a great wounded bull, with two
streams of fiery blood pouring down its gored sides.
Vesuvius! Brown had planned that we should see
it for the first time after dark. I had wondered why
he suggested not leaving Rome till twelve o'clock,
when usually he is so keen on early starts, and he
was evasive when I asked why. But when I had
breathed that "Ohi " and had a moment to recover
myself, he told me.

Dad, dear, Brown is splendid. He has revealed
Naples to me. I can't express it in any other way,
for nobody else who has told me about coming to
Naples has ever done the things that we have; and
they would not have occurred to Aunt Mary or me.
We should have gone the ordinary round if it hadn't
been for him, and when we said good-bye to her
Naples would have been only a mere acquaintance
of ours, not a dear and intimate friend who has told
us her best secrets. In the first place, we shouldn't
have known any better than to stop in some big,
obvious sort of hotel in the noisy wasps' nest of the
city, instead of coming here where the air is pure

290 The Lightning Conductor

and some of the most beautiful things in the world
in sight without turning our heads. It's such a
homelike hotel, and instead of sending to England
for orange marmalade made of Sicilian oranges, the
way all the other hotels seem to do, they make it
themselves out of their own oranges ; and it's a poem.

We've been up Vesuvius, not in the daytime, like
the humdrum tourists, but by torchlight, and we saw
the moon rise. Instead of rushing to the Museum
the first thing and mooning vaguely about there for
hours, we saved it until after we'd been out to
Pompeii on the motor-car; then it was a hundred
times more interesting, and we are coming back
after Capri to pay another visit to the busts of
Tiberius and his terrible mother. I felt in Rome
as if it were an impertinence to be modern and
young. But in Pompeii — oh, I can't tell you what
I felt there. I think — I really do think that I saw
ghosts, and they were much more real and important
than I. It was like entering the enchanted palace of
the Sleeping Beauty in the wood, only a thousand
times more thrilling and wonderful. I didn't feel as
if anyone else had ever been there since it was dug up,
except Brown and me — and, of course, Aunt Mary.

Brown knew about fascinating Italian restaurants,
and he drove us up on the automobile lor tea to a
new hotel on a high hill, almost a mountain. It's
the "smart" thing for people who know to go up to
Tea, which — if it's fine — you have on a great terrace
that is the most beautiful thing in all Naples. And
we spent a whole morning up at St. Elmo. That is
going to be my best recollection, I think, and — you

The Lightning Conductor 291

will laugh — but the next best will be the Aquarium.
When you came to Naples was there a thing in the
Aquarium like the ghost of a cucumber, transparent
as glass, with strings of opals and rubies being drawn
through its veins every two minutes regularly?
Brown says that it — or its ancestor — has been there
ever since he can remember. I like that green light
in the Aquarium, which makes you feel as if you
were a mermaid under the sea, and inclined to swim
instead of walk.

When we were driving up to the hotel, Brown said
it was almost as steep and winding as the road from
Capri to Anacapri. That speech, and gazing from
our balcony at Parker's over the blue bay to the
island which looks like the Sphinx rising out of the
sea, have made me distracted to take the automobile
to Capri. Brown "doesn't advise it," and thinks
"we may have great trouble in landing," but that
makes me want the adventure all the more; so we're
going to-morrow — not just for a day, like the people
who don't care about Tiberius, and think the Blu9
Grotto is the only thing to see — but to stay for
several days. Brown says one could find a new walk
on the island for every day of a whole month, and
each would be absolutely different from the other,
though Capri is only three and a half miles long and
about a mile and a half in width.

I feel as if we were in for something exciting, just
as you feel, I suppose, when you are going to bring
off a big coup "in the street."

Your Chip-of-the-old-Block,

MOLLY.

292 The Lightning Conductor

P.S. — I wouldn't post my Naples letter. I thought
if I did, you might imagine that we and our car had
been engulphed in the sea, unless you got the end of
the adventure tacked on to the beginning; so this is
to be a fat postscript. Yes, a gorged python of a
postscript.

At first the dock people couldn't be persuaded that
we seriously intended to take an automobile to the
island of Capri; and when they realised that we were
in earnest, they buzzed -with excitement like swarm-
ing bees. Everyone directly or indirectly concerned
argued at the top of his voice, and embroidered his
arguments with gestures, nobody paying the slightest
attention to anybody else. We didn't even ask per-
mission to go on one of the big passenger steamers,
for we knew it would be no use; but there's a little
sea-chick of a thing called La Sirena, which plies
back and forth every day with provisions, luggage,
and passengers, to whom cheapness is an object. She
was our prey; and as nobody had happened to make
a law against transporting motor-cars, simply because
nobody had ever thought of taking anything so
abnormal since Tiberius used to send his chariots,
we could not be restrained.

All the loafers in Naples collected on the quay, and
I don't believe anything would have been done for us
if Brown hadn't calmly begun to widen the gangway.
He had suggested that I should go over in the morn-
ing with Aunt Mary on the North German Lloyd
that takes the trippers (as he calls them) over for the
Blue Grotto, and lunch. But I didn't see it in that
light, for I wanted the adventure. Aunt Mary didn't-

The Lightning Conductor 293

want it at any price, so she was packed off by her-
self ; and when the Lightning Conductor slowly drove
the car on board the little Sirena I was by his side.
There was a moment of awestruck silence on the
quay; but when Brown had gently manoeuvred
Balzac into position in a clear space on deck, the
murmurs of doubt and disapproval turned into a
burst of delighted wonder. Brown and I felt like
"variety" artistes being applauded for a clever turn,
and the appropriate thing would have been to bow
and kiss our hands.

But all this was nothing to what was in store for
us at the Grande Marina at Capri. If we had gone
in one of the bigger steamers, we should have had to
get the automobile into a small boat, or perhaps lash
it somehow on to two boats; but the Sirena is so
small that she can come up along the landing-place,
which was one reason why, after Brown had made
inquiries, he was willing to go with the fowls and
vegetables. The nearer we got to the island, the
more beautiful it looked, and as we came in Brown
was telling me things about Tiberius' palaces and
where they had stood, when suddenly a shout went
up from the quay. A group of stalwart women,
clustered together there, were laughing and pointing
at our car. They belonged to a race of Amazons
bred on Capri, whose daily work it is to land heavy
goods and carry trunks on their heads to the omni-
buses and cabs in waiting at the end of the quay.
Before we were fairly in, they swooped like a pack of
wolves on the car, laughing and gabbling, and somehow
they and Brown landed it on the slippery little quay

294 The Lightning Conductor

The news that there was an automobile on the
island must have flashed around by magic telegraph,
for people — swarms of people, more than you would
have thought could live on the whole of Capri — came
running from everywhere to see us start. I should
have been awfully amused if it hadn't been for one
thing. Up there at the end of the quay, where we
must pass, were half a dozen hotel omnibuses and
a long rank of smart cabs, like victorias, with very
pretty little horses, whose faces looked incredibly
short — perhaps on account of their huge blinders.
They had feathers on their heads, and their harness
was ornamented with all kinds of strange devices in
silver or brass. Sweet little pets they were, that you
felt as if you might ask into your house to sit on the
hearthrug; and when they saw Balzac they all began
to snort and shiver and act as if they were going to
faint. Their drivers — in hard, white hats something
like our policemen's helmets — flew to the poor beasties'
heads; and some laughed, and some looked anxious,
some angry.

Evidently the little horses had lived an innocent,
peaceful life for years on Capri, and had never heard
of railways or steam rollers, much less automobiles.
I was so sorry for them, and wished I hadn't been so
headstrong, but had been guided by Brown when
he advised me to leave Balzac at Naples. However,
we couldn't abandon the car on the quay, so we got
in and Brown started the motor. Oh, my goodness'
every horse went into hysterics! Their drivers he-1 d
them, and said things soothing or the reverse, accord-
ing to their bringing-up, but the little things kicked

The Lightning Conductor 295

and plunged and doubled up in knots, although
Brown drove by as slowly and solemnly as the
Dead March in Saul. I thought we should never
get past, but when we did the worst was still to
come, for we had a steep road to climb up the cliff,
and in the distance several cab-horses were trotting
down. I begged Brown to stop and let them go by,
lest they should jump over into space, so he did; and
it was all that he and the drivers of the cabs could
do to get the poor horrified little animals past us at
all. That experience was enough for me. Brown
pointed up towards Anacapri, far, far above Capri
proper, on a horn of the mountain, reached only
by a narrow but splendidly engineered road winding
like a piece of thin wood shaving, or by steep steps
cut in the rock by the Phoenicians thousands of years
ago. "No," said I sadly, "we'll never drive up to
Anacapri on the automobile. I shan't use it once
again while we're on the island, and all the horses
had better be warned indoors when we go down to
take the boat."

But it was a beautiful drive up from the quay to
the town of Capri and our hotel. I couldn't help
enjoying it a little, in spite of feeling like an incipient
murderess. I believe if I'd been on the way to
execution I would have enjoyed it. The road swept
round to the left, ascending loop after loop, to a
saddle of the island lying between two cliffs, crowned
with the most picturesque ruins I ever saw. Every-
where you looked was a new picture, and oh! the
delicious colour of sky, and sea, and the dove-grey
of the cliffs! You can see next to nothing of the

296 The Lightning Conductor

town till you come on it; then suddenly you are
in a busy piazza, with an old palace or two and a
beautiful tower, and everything characteristically
Italian, even the sunshine, which is so vivid that it
is like a pool of light. Here we made a great deal
more excitement before we drove under an old arch-
way and plunged down a steep, stone-paved street
filled with gay little shops, and ending with the
courtyard of our hotel.

I know you only came to Capri with the "trippers "
to see the Blue Grotto, and I feel sorry for you, you
poor Dad, because, though the Grotto is so strange
and beautiful, it is the thing I care for least of all.
Just think, you didn't even stay long enough to see the
sunset turn the Faraglioni rocks to brilliant, beaten
copper, standing up from clear depths of emerald,
into which the clouds drop rose-leaves! You didn't
go to the old grey Certosa, for if you had you would
certainly have bought it and restored it to use as
a sort of "occasional villa," like those nice heroes
of Ouida's who say, " I believe, by the way, that is
mine," when they are travelling with friends in yachts
and pass magnificent palaces which they have quite
forgotten on the shores of the Mediterranean or the
Italian lakes. You didn't walk along a steep path
about twelve inches wide, hanging over a dizzy
precipice, to the Arco Naturale — and neither would
I if it hadn't been for Brown. I was horribly afraid,
but I was ashamed to let him see that, so I struggled
along somehow, and it was glorious. We ended the
walk by going down a great many steps cut in the
rock to the grotto of Mitromania, where they used

The Lightning Conductor 297

to worship the sun-god and sacrifice living victims —
human beings sometimes. You can see the altar
still, and the trough where the blood used to run —
ugh! and the secret chambers where they kept the
victims.

We stayed a day and two nights in the town of
Capri, and should have stopped on till we were ready
to leave the island, for it is a charming hotel, with
a big garden and a ravishing view; but I got it into
my head that I wanted to walk up all the Phoenician
steps to Anacapri — there are about eight hundred
of them — instead of going up by a mere road, no
matter how beautiful. Of course, Aunt Mary was
consumed with no such mad ambition, and as she
had heard that to go up the steps was like walking
up a wall, she was afraid to have me try the ascent
alone; so I asked Brown to take me. We started
after breakfast; and to go up all the steps we first
had to descend to the very shore, near a palace of
Tiberius', which is buried under the sea with all its
treasures. Doesn't that sound like a fairy story?
Then we began going up and up, and we kept meet-
ing peasant girls tripping gaily down in their rope
shoes, singing together like happy birds, not even
touching with their hands the loaded baskets on
their heads. They were so beautiful that they were
more like stage peasants than real ones. Their
eyes were great stars, and their clear, olive faces
were like cameos with a light shining through from
behind. They were dressed in the simplest cotton
dresses, but their pinks and blues and purples, put
on without any regard to artistic contrast, blended

298 The Lightning Conductor

together as exquisitely as flowers in a brilliant
garden.

I tripped gaily, too, at first, but the sun grew hot
and so did I. Still, on we went, up the face of the
cliff, and with every interval for rest came a new and
wonderful view. By-and-by we got up so high that
the row boats on their way to the Blue Grotto looked
like little water-beetles, with oars for legs; and
though the waves were beating against the rocks r
we could no longer see them; the water appeared
as smooth as an endless sapphire floor polished for
the sirens to dance on. It was all so entrancing that
I didn't know I was almost getting a sunstroke;
besides, who would think of sunstrokes in January,
no matter how hot the weather? Brown remarked
that my lips were pale, but I said I was only a little
tired. In rather more than an hour we came to the
top, which was Anacapri. My head ached, so we went
into a restaurant place, which turned out to be very
famous. I sat on the wall of a terrace looking over
a sheer precipice a thousand feet high until I felt
partly rested; then a handsome girl, evidently of
Saracen blood, brought me delicious lemonade. We
had started away to walk into the village of Ana-
capri, when everything began to swim before my
eyes. Luckily we were close to a house. It was
a little old domed white house with a long vine-
covered pergola, and it said "Bella Vista" over the
gateway. I had to lean on Brown's arm going in,
and the last thing I remember was a kind-faced man
hurrying to the door. The next thing I was in a big
white bedroom, sparsely furnished and daintily neat

The Lightning Conductor 299

I had fainted and they had sent for a doctor. Pres-
ently he appeared, and afterwards I found out that
he was quite a celebrity — the "Doctor Antonio" of
Capri. He said it was the sun; I hadn't eaten
enough breakfast, and I'd had a "heat-stroke" — not
half so bad as a sun-stroke ; still, I ought to rest.

I was quite willing to obey the prescription, for
I was falling in love with the house, and longed to
stay in it for days. The room I was in had four
windows, each one looking out on a view that stay-
at-home people would give hundreds of dollars to
see; and it opened on to a lovely private terrace.
Brown took a message "downstairs" to Capri, asking
Aunt Mary to pack up and come to the Bella Vista,
which she did, and we've been here for two days.
I was quite well in a few hours, but I wouldn't have
gone back to more conventional comforts for any-
thing. Anacapri and our little house seem as if they
were in the world on top of the clouds which Jack
discovered when he climbed his beanstalk up into
the sky. Why, the first morning when I waked
here, and opened my glass door on to the terrace
to look at the sea, and the umbrella pines, and the
cypresses (which I seem to hear, as well as see, like
sharp notes in music), four or five large white clouds
got up from the terrace where they'd been sitting
and sneaked past me through the door into the room,
just like the cows which, I suppose, the gods kept on
Olympus to milk for their ambrosia. And the sun-
sets, with Vesuvius set like a great conical amethyst
in a blaze of ruby and topaz glory ! It is something
to come to Anacapri for. But at the Bella Vista

300 The Lightning Conductor

we would not feed you on sunsets and cloud's milk
alone. The little landlord and landlady cook and
wait on us, and I never tasted daintier dishes than
they "create."

There are more things than sunsets and pines and
cypresses to see too. One takes walks all over the
island. One goes to rival inns where rival beauties
dance the tarantella, and vie in announcements that
Tiberius amused himself by throwing victims in the
sea from the exact site of their houses. Oh, every-
thing is Tiberius here. He is regarded by the
peasants as quite a modern person, whom you may
meet .in a dark night, if you haven't murmured a
prayer before the lovely white virgin in her illu-
minated grotto of rock. Mothers say to their
children, "If you do that, Tiberius will catch you",
and the English colony of Capri quarrel over the
gentleman's character, on which there are differences
of opinion.

The most beautiful house I ever saw in my life
is set on the brow of the precipice at Anacapri; it
is a dream-house; or else its owner rubbed a lamp,
and a genie gave it to him. It is long and low and
white, and filled with wonderful treasures which its
possessor found under the sea — spoil of Tiberius'
buried palaces. The floors are paved with mosaic
of priceless coloured marble, which Tiberius brought
from distant lands for himself; a red sphinx, which
Tiberius imported from Egypt crouches on the marble
wall, gazing over the cliffs and the sea; Tiberius'
statues in marble and bronze line the arched, open-
air corridors. There's nothing else like it in the

The Lightning Conductor 301

world in these days, and few men would be worthy
to have it and to live there; but I think, from what
I hear, that the man who does live there is worthy
of it all.

You will find a rose and a spray of jasmine in this
letter. I picked the rose for you, in the pergola, and
our landlady gave me the jasmine. I wish I could
send you more of the beauty of this magic island.
Your enchanted

MOLLY.

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

TAORMINA, SICILY,

January 26.

My dear Montie,

We are at Taormina! When I say that, i
want you to realise that we have arrived at the Most
Beautiful Place in the world. Nothing less than
capital letters can express it. We have had six
glorious days in Sicily, and it is fit that these wild
ramblings of mine with the Goddess should end
here amidst such scenes of loveliness that even the
imagination can conjure up nothing more exquisite.
For end these ramblings must; to be continued, as
I hope (but dare not expect), in a life-journey in
which I may wear my own name shared then by
her. It is through my dear, kind, little match-
making mother that I trust this may be brought
about; for my pluck fails me when I think of con-
fessing my imposture to the Goddess.

I told you in my letter from Rome that at the
hotel there I found a forwarded letter from the
mater, saying that on account of the continued rain
and cold she and the inevitable Barrows had deter-
mined to leave Rome suddenly and go to Naples,
perhaps to Sicily, in search of sunshine. She added
that she had been worried about me, as she had not

The Lightning Conductor 303

heard anything for weeks, from which it is clear that
at least three letters have somehow miscarried —
doubtless owing to her constant change of address
and the carelessness of hotel people in forwarding.
The worst of it is that I haven't been able to re-
assure her mind, as she gave me no new address,
but merely said that when she was settled she would
wire. Of course, I gave the hall-porter at the
"Grand" the most explicit directions as to where
I was to be found, and tipped him well. The result
is that on my arrival here in Taormina I found a
telegram (sent on from Rome) to say that my
mother and the Barrows will arrive here to-morrow
to stay a week with Sir Evelyn Haines, an old
friend of the mater's, who has, I believe, bought a
deserted monastery and turned it into a fine house.
To-morrow, then, my mother will be here; I shall
tell her everything, throw myself on her mercy, and
get her to make peace for me with the Goddess.
That, at least, is my present plan. But who can tell
how events may upset it ?

Well, as you don't know Italy south of Naples,
perhaps you'd like to hear something of our Sicilian
adventures. Of adventures, in the strict sense, we
have had less here than in other places. If I hadn't
been certain that the country was quite safe as far as
brigandage is concerned, I should not have been such
a fool as to bring two ladies through it in a motor-
car. But we have had, as I said, " six glorious days,"
and the Goddess and I are agreed that in many ways
Sicily is the best thing we have done on our whole
long tour.

304 The Lightning Conductor

We landed at Palermo, after a night passage in a
comfortable boat from Naples, leaving one world-
famous bay to enter another scarcely less beautiful.
Rarely have I seen anything finer than Palermo and
the group of mountains round it as we steamed in
at sunrise on a white and gold morning. The ship
goes alongside the quay, so there was no difficulty at
all about landing the car. It was slung, and gently
deposited on shore by the ship's crane, and we drove
off on it at once to the Villa Igiea. Everything was
new to me in Sicily, and I confess that the Igiea was
a surprise. One has heard that Sicily is a hundred
years behind the times, and that in accommodation
the island is deficient. That cannot be said any
longer. The Igiea is perfect. Miss Randolph re-
luctantly admitted that there is nothing better in
America. In situation the house is unique, lying
under the tall, pink Monte Pellegrino. It was built
by the Sicilian millionaire Florio for a sanitarium,
but never so used. It is a long building of honey-
coloured stone, standing in an exquisite terraced
garden that stretches along the sea, and actually
overhangs it — a charmingly irregular garden, with
many unexpected nooks, and sweet-smelling flowers,
palms, and all kinds of sub-tropical plants, fountains
playing in marble basins, and a huge, half-covered
balcony, where everyone except insignificant chauf-
feurs assemble for tea. Altogether a gay and delight-
ful place, and it is having the effect of bringing to the
island a stream of rich and luxury-loving travellers.

From afar I saw Miss Randolph and Aunt Mary
breakfasting on the big balcony ; and they could not

The Lightning Conductor 305

have lingered long over their unpacking, for at ten
o'clock I had orders to be at the hotel door with the
Napier. I knew no more of Sicily than they did, but
it is my metier to keep up the reputation of a walking
encyclopaedia; therefore, in the small watches of the
night, while the Goddess and her Aunt slept the sleep
of the just, I had poured over guide-books and fat
little volumes of Sicilian history. What I wasn't
prepared to tell them that heavenly morning about
Ulysses, Polyphemus, the omnipotent Roger, and
other persons of local interest, to say nothing of
the right buildings to be visited, was not worth
telling.

We ran along the shore, past harbours and basins
where strangely shaped boats lay at anchor on a
smooth, blue sea, with an elusive background of
shimmering, snowclad mountains; and in a street,
like a moving picture gallery, we made the acquaint-
ance of those painted carts which are indigenous
to the island. Quaintly rudimentary as carts, these
extraordinary vehicles are remarkable as works of
art, and the Goddess did exactly what I expected
of her — wanted to buy one. With her usual quick
discrimination, she picked out a fine specimen, the
wheels, shafts, and underwork a mass of elaborate
wood-carving, richly coloured, the boldly painted
panels representing a victory of Roger's, attended
with great slaughter. The little horse was jingling
with bells, and almost overweighted with his tower-
ing scarlet plumes.

"I must have that," exclaimed my impulsive
Angel. "Please stop the car, Brown, and ask the

306 The Lightning Conductor

man how much he will sell it for, just as it stands —
harness and all, but not the horse. "

The much-enduring Brown stopped, ran back,
hailed the owner of the cart, who was accompanied
by a dove-eyed wife and seven Saracenic children all
piled in anyhow on top of each other like parcels.
Never, probably, was a man more surprised than by
the question hurled at him, but Sicilians retain too
deep a strain of the oriental to show that they are
flustered. He said in a strange patois that his cart
was the pride and joy of the household; that it had
been decorated by the one man in Sicily who had
inherited the true art of historical cart-painting; that
it was one of the best on the island, and he had
expected it to remain an ornament to his family
unto the third and fourth generations, but that he
would part with it for the sum of one thousand lira.
I beat him down until, with tears in his magnificent
eyes, he consented to accept two-thirds, which really
was more than the cart was worth, or than he had
expected to get when he began to bargain. The
cart was Miss Randolph's, and later that day I
arranged about having it taken to pieces, boxed, and
sent to New York. She was delighted with her pur-
chase, and in such a radiant mood that she thought
everything and everyone she saw perfect, from the
men milking goats to the dramatically talented
gardien of the beautiful old red-domed San Giovanni
degli Eremiti, once a mosque.

The German Emperor is rather a hero of hers,
and when we left the car in the street and visited
the Palazzo Reale she was charmed to learn that he

The Lightning Conductor 307

hact pronounced a view from a certain balcony the
finest he had ever seen, resting his elbows on the
iron railing and gazing out over the city for half an
hour. It really was inspiring — the blue harbour and
the ring of sparkling white mountains, but I'm not
prepared to agree with the superlative. I put the
view of Naples from St. Elmo ahead. When the
Goddess came to see the Capella Palatina with its
gem-like Arabo-Norman mosaics, she was moved
almost to tears. " It is matchless ; the most beautiful
thing on earth!" she said. But afterwards I drove
her (Aunt Mary you may take for granted) out four
steep miles to Monreale, and it was well that she
had saved a few adjectives. Not that she is a girl
who scatters much small coin of this kind, but she
has usually the right word when a thing does not
go beyond words. When it does she says nothing,
except with her eloquent eyes. But in the ancient
cloisters of that old monastery I watched her face,
and it was a study. I believe, though each carved
capital on each column is different from the others,
she could enumerate in order the quaint and intri-
cate biblical designs. In one secluded and dusky
corner there was the faint tinkle of a fountain — a
wonderful fountain, very old, and copied from a still
older Moorish memory, by some Arab who served
his Norman conquerors. My beautiful girl was a
picture as she stood gazing at it, leaning against a
pillar, her white dress half in sunshine, half in shadow,
her brown hair burnished to living gold.

For the modern part of Palermo she didn't much
care; the crowded Corso Vittorio Emanuele; the

308 The Lightning Conductor

Quattro Canti, which is the Piccadilly Circus of the
Sicilian capital, or even the cathedral. But she loved
the Villa Giulia, which she was greatly surprised to
find a garden, not knowing that all gardens are
"villas" in Sicily; she and Aunt Mary went in alone,
while I waited outside the gates in the car; but her
beauty and pretty frock excited so much attention
that she was quite embarrassed, and I reaped advan-
tage from her discomfiture, being invited to act as
guard in the Botanical Gardens. I begged for her
Kodak there, to take a photo (ostensibly) of the big
building devoted to lectures, but quietly waited until
she had inadvertently "crossed my path." Then I
snapped her.

We stayed in Palermo for three days, and even so
had the barest glimpse of the place. If I have luck,
and win Her forgiveness first, and then at last Her-
self, maybe we shall come again to Sicily together,
lingering at all the places we are slighting now. But,
dare I dream of it ?

On the fourth day we set out for a visit to one
of the show places of the island Girgentt of the
Temples. And now we began to understand why
the millionaire Florio, with his four noble motor-cars
panting in their stalls, has not been able to induce
his friends to stock their Sicilian stables in the same
way. We knew already that Italian roads were
generally inferior to French ones; that it was com-
paratively difficult to buy petrol, especially good
petrol, or essence, in Italy, and I loaded up the willing
car with several reserve tins on leaving the Igiea;
but of course I had had to take the state of the

The Lightning Conductor 309

roads on hearsay. The surprise and interest of the
crowd, even in Palermo, where Signor Florio often
drives, warned us that not many ventured', with
"mechanically propelled vehicles" where we were
about to venture, and I was a little dubious, though
the Goddess was in the highest spirits and yearning
for brigands. She had heard at the hotel of a very
picturesque one who owned a lair in the mountains,
and urged me to pay the chivalrous gentleman a
morning call, but I was both obdurate and unbe-
lieving.

We started; occasionally, as we progressed, it was
-iecessary to ask the way. The peasants we passed
on foot, on donkey back, or crowded into their
painted carts, were so wrapped in wonder at sight
of us that it was useless to shout at them without
warning; they couldn't recover themselves in time
to answer before we had sped by. So I adopted a
method I have often found useful. I selected my
man at a distance, singling him out from his com-
panions, and pointing my finger straight at him
as I approached. This excited his curiosity and
riveted his attention; he was then able to reply
when I demanded a direction.

From Palermo on the north to Girgenti on the
south of the island is something over sixty miles
the way we went — sixty miles of bad and up-and-
down road. Sicily is poor, and it could not but be
to its advantage if visitors came to it in larger
numbers. I should say one of the first things they
ought to do is to improve the roads, and make
them decently passable for carriages, motor-cars, and

310 The Lightning Conductor

bicycles. At present the plan of mending the roads
is to dump down so much "metal," and leave the
local traffic to grind it in. As everybody avoids it
and there is little rain, there it stays, and in con-
sequence patches of sharp, loose stones lie over the
roads the year round. Steer with all the skill one
can, it's impossible always to dodge the stones, and
our tyres got a good punishment.

The interior of the island, though grandly im-
pressive, is unusually bare, save for its wild flowers,
the ancient forests having long since disappeared.
Our road lay for a time along the sea, and then
inland, always mounting up into the heart of the
mountains, by long, green valleys and over desolate
plateaux where flocks of sheep and goats grazed
under the guardianship of wild-looking shepherds
and fierce dogs, the latter violently resenting the
intrusion of the car into their fastnesses. We saw
few people on the road, and passed only the poorest
villages; but we had brought an excellent luncheon
which we ate by the roadside, we three (would it had
been two!), alone in a wide and solitary landscape.
A very few years ago such a journey as this across
the interior of Sicily would have been highly dan-
gerous on account of brigands. As it was we had
scowls from dark-browed men whose horses took
fright at us, but no such encounter as we had with
the peasants in France. An Englishman at Palermo
who has lived long in Sicily warned me that every
Sicilian carries a gun, and said that in the wild in-
terior they would very likely shoot at the auto-
mobile for the mere fun of the thing as they would

The Lightning Conductor 311

at any other strange beast that was new to them.
This wasn't encouraging to hear. But though we
met some truculent-looking fellows on the road, their
sentiments towards us seemed to be those of wonder
rather than animosity.

The sun was sinking in a haze of rose and gold
as we came to the crest of the long hill on which
stands the town of Girgenti, passed through it, and
coasted down to the Hotel des Temples. Beyond
the hotel, which stands isolated between the town
and the sea, we saw suddenly the great Temple of
Concord, a lonely and magnificent monument. It
affects the imagination as Stonehenge does when
you see it for the first time. The red rays of the
sun shone aslant upon its splendid amber-coloured
pillars and colossal pediments, revealing every detail
of 'the pure Doric architecture. When the smiling
Signer Gagliardi had received us and allotted rooms
to the party (the best in the house for the American
ladies on their automobile, and a little one for the
chauffeur), I strolled in the fragrant old garden, and
leaning on the balustrade by the ancient well of
carved stone, looked long over this wonderful plateau
above the sea, where once stood perhaps the finest
assemblage of Greek temples the world has ever
seen. Next morning we went down to see the
temples at close quarters. I had been warned that
the road would be too rough for an automobile ; but
a gallant Napier which had passed through the forest
of the Landes and braved the dragon's teeth sown
on the roads of Sicily's fastnesses was not to be
dismayed by a few jolting miles. Everyone in the

312 The Lightning Conductor

hotel — English, American, German — came out to see
us start, predicting that if we came back the car
wouldn't, or if it came back, it would be — so to
speak — over our dead bodies. Aunt Mary was so
much impressed by these dark prophecies that she
refused to accompany us, and engaged one of the
odd little carriages from the ancient town of Girgenti
bristling on the height above our hotel. Thus it
came about that I had my Goddess to myself, and in
her congenial company I hardly knew whether the
road was rough or no. Certainly the good Napier
did not complain, and as for the tyres, the roads of
Central Sicily had made them callous.

I thought then that never was such a day in the
memory of man; but several days have come and
gone since — also with her, and a man's opinion
changes. I knew that in the society of no one else
would there have hovered such a glamour over the
ruins of Greek glory. Five noble temples they are,
my Montie, of which two are almost perfect; the
others pathetic relics of past grandeur, with their
heaped, fallen columns. There they stand — or lie
prone with here and there a majestic pillar pointing
skyward — in a stately row between the brilliant blue
sea and the billowing flower-starred plain on the one
side, the hills and the grim city, like a crow's nest,
on the other. Their sandstone columns hold oyster
and scallop shells from prehistoric ages, while here
and there a broken vein of coralline stains the dun
surface as if with blood. Below the towering tem-
ples are shimmering olive trees, silver- green as they
quiver in the warm breeze, and on this day of ours a

The Lightning Conductor 313

myriad budding almond-blossoms were breaking at
their massive feet in rosy foam. All the ground was
carpeted with yellow daisies, pimpernel, and iris,
blue-grey as my lady's eyes. Together we pictured
processions of men and maidens, white-robed, bear-
ing urns and waving garlands of roses, chanting paeans
in a slow ascent of the amber-hued temple steps. We
also were in a mood to sing praises as we drove back
to the friendly hotel in its high eyrie of garden.

In the afternoon, I am sorry to say, we went up
into the town — it is a bleak and gruesome memory;
and next day we had a hundred and twenty miles'
drive to Catania, our faces turned towards Etna, the
Queen of Sicily, which we had not yet seen, but
longed to see. In view of the awful roads we were
likely to encounter, I had asked the ladies if they
would mind starting at seven. They were ready on
the minute, and I think they were repaid by the
beauty of the newly waked morning, bathed in
diamond-dew, and pearly with sunrise.

Again we drove through strange country, sterile
save for the crowding prickly pears with their leering
green faces, tangled garlands of pink, wild geranium,
and a blaze of poppies spreading over the meadow
land like a running flame. We penetrated the heart
of Sicily, wound through her undulating valleys, and
were frowned on by her ruined robber-castles; but
the towns were discouragingly squalid, for much of
our way led through the sulphur-mine district.

The true interest of that day came when from afar
off we descried twin mountains, each bearing a
buddled town on its summit. My midnight studies

314 The Lightning Conductor

warned me that they were Castrogiovanni and
Calascibetta, and I had suggested to Miss Randolph
on starting that even at the risk of having to drive
to Catania in the dark, we should not miss a visit
to Castrogiovanni. At Palermo she had bought
Douglas Sladen's book, In Sicily, and Miss Lorimer's
travel-romance, By the Waters of Sicily, so that she
was already fired at the name of Castrogiovanni,
and needed no persuasion from me to turn aside to
scale the ancient rock-fortress that marks the very
centre of Sicily. I am pretty sure that never be-
fore has a motor-car climbed that winding road,
and I think the whole population turned out and ran
at our heels as we drove slowly through the sombre,
wind-swept, eagle-eyrie of a town. As it happened,
the day was overcast, and scudding clouds drifted
coldly across the mountain-top, showing us the
reason for the great blue hoods that the men wear
over their heads, their Saracenic faces peering out
as from a cave. We alighted in the market-place,
and leaned on the balustrade to see the tremendous
view — all Sicily spread out below us, gleaming with
opaline lights and shadows. Hundreds of people
clustered curiously round us and watched with dark,
lustrous eyes, as if we had been beings from another
world. We tried to ignore all these silent watchers,
who, Aunt Mary said, gave her "a creepy feeling in
her spine," and gazed out over the tumbled moun-
tains of Sicily.

Suddenly a shaft of sunlight broke through the
clouds and descended to earth like a golden ladder
It was the signal for a transformation scene. The

The Lightning Conductor 315

white mists coiling round us, disappeared; the clouds
floated away before a breath of balmy wind, and the
landscape lay bright and clear at our feet. Then
"Oh! What is that?" exclaimed Miss Randolph.
I followed the glance of her eyes, and far away there
was a great white floating cone of pearl soaring up
into the sky. Yes, it was Etna!

At Castrogiovanni there is no inn where a lady
can stay, so when we had seen the view there was
nothing more to keep us. I had stopped the motor
when we left the car, and everyone crowded eagerly
round us as the ladies mounted to their places.
Their amazement when they saw me start the motor
with one turn of the handle was immense. A kind
of awed murmur went up from the crowd; and
when, with a warning blast on the horn, I drove
slowly through their parting ranks, circled round in
the market-place, just avoiding a procession of
masked Misericordia, and putting on speed, passed
swiftly through the streets, with a great shout every-
one started to run after the car We distanced
them easily (Miss Randolph imprudently showering
pennies), and ran at a fair pace down the winding
road that led to the valley. Looking up, we could
see the terraces and every window of the houses
alive with wondering heads. Castrogiovanni will
remember for many a day the visit of the first
motor-car to its historic heights.

Catania is, I think, memorable to Miss Randolph
merely because she bought there at a tiny but
famous shop incredible quantities of curious Sicilian
amber, streaked green with sulphur, absolutely

316 The Lightning Conductor

unique, and valued as a luck-bringer. She says that
she has a "pocket-piece" for each one of her most
intimate friends in New York. Judging by the
provision made, the name of these intimates must
be legion. Apart from her opinion, however, I
humbly venture to think that Catania has its points,
if only people stopped long enough to see them,
which they don't, Catania being the Basle of Sicily —
the place of departure for somewhere else. In our
case the somewhere else was Syracuse.

Now the Goddess had been looking forward to
Siracusa; I'm not sure that she was not by way
of regarding her whole past as working slowly up to
a sight of that place, since she had come to think of
it. She had made up her royal mind to stop there
some time, dreaming in the quarries where the seven
thousand Greeks languished in captivity while the
Siracusan beauties, under red umbrellas, derided or
brazenly admired them. She had, so to speak, made
a note of Dionysius' Ear, and the Greek and Roman
theatres, and already she had bought a photograph
of a strange, Dante-esque den in the rocks which
resembled Hades and was called Paradise. She
planned an excursion up the little river Anapo to see
the papyrus, and the deep blue pool of jewelled fish
at the source; and there were various drives and
walks which, she thought, would keep her at the
Villa Politi at least a week. But, on my part, I was
equally determined that she should not stop an hour
over the two days I had grudgingly allotted her.
Not that I wasn't interested in Siracusa; I was,
intensely, but I was and am a good deal more inter-

The Lightning Conductor 317

ested in her and the carrying out of my own secret
plans, which can best be accomplished with the
aid of a sympathetic mother. I wanted to reach
Taormina as soon as possible, so as to be on the spot
when the mater arrives. Naturally I did not openly
oppose the will of a mere Brown against that of
Brown's mistress. I merely hinted that there was
said to be a good deal of white dust in Siracusa,
and that it was hot. I also mentioned, inadvertently,
that in some of the hotels there were mice. It was
a blow to hear that Miss Randolph liked mice; but
there was encouragement in. Aunt Mary's "Oh! " of
horror; and I lived in hope.

In order not to waste a moment, I turned the car
aside on the way to Siracusa, and drove along a
white road between olive-clad hills to the ancient
Greek stronghold of Fort Euryelus, which once
guarded the western extremity of that great table-
land which was the splendid city of Siracusa. You,
who know your Thucydides better than I do, are
probably well up in all the thrilling events which
took place there four hundred years before Christ;
but the Goddess depended largely upon my lips for
bread-crumbs of knowledge, and her awed interest
in the perfectly preserved magazines for food, the
subterranean galleries, and the secret sallyport be-
trayed to the enemy by a traitor, was pretty to see.
From a tower of piled stones I pointed away towards
Etna with Taormina at its feet and said, "There —
there lies the beauty-spot of Sicily." Thus I got
in my entering wedge.

It was four o'clock when we finally reached Siracusa,

318 The Lightning Conductor

but I took my lady and her aunt for a glimpse of
Arethusa's fountain in the town before driving them
into perhaps the most wonderful garden in the world
— the double garden of the Villa Politi. It is double
because the heights, on a level with the white bal-
conied hotel, bloom with flowers and billow with
waving olive trees; while down below, far below, lie
the haunted quarries, starry now in their tragic
shadows with the golden spheres of oranges. The
latomia forms a subterranean garden; when the
brilliant flower-beds above are scintillating with noon-
day heat, down there, under the orange trees with
their white blossoms, it is always cool and dim, with
a green light like a garden under the sea.

The quarry is deep, with sheer white walls over-
grown with ivy and purple bouganvillia. It is of
•enormous extent, winding irregularly, crossed here and
there with a slight bridge, and the hotel stands on
the very edge. Far away lies Siracusa, a streak of
pearl against the deep indigo of the sea. We went
down into the latomia and wandered into its most
secret places. But when we came upon a pile of
skulls Aunt Mary beat a retreat. The ghosts of the
tortured Greeks haunted the place, she vowed, and
lest she should be lost in the labyrinth of the quarry,
•she had to be escorted up to the world of mortals.

Next day we did most of the things that Miss
Randolph had set her heart on, but not all. My
alluring picture of Taormina consoled her for what
she had to miss, and she consented to be torn away
on the following morning.

Our drive to-day has been a scamper through

The Lightning Conductor 319

Paradise. The road we took wound through orange
groves, the sea lay glittering below us, mountains
towering above, each hill-top crested with a ruin
which had crumbled to decay when the world was
young. My Goddess said that she had never known
how much truer than history mythology was until
this magic morning. Why, we saw the stones that
Polyphemus threw after Ulysses, and the scene of
Acis* love, and always before us, beckoning us on,
was the white, hovering cone of Etna.

At last we struck the little station of Giardini on
the coast, the nearest to Taormina, which lies some
hundreds of feet above on a high shoulder of the
mountains. An exquisite road, engineered in gradual
curves, winds upwards along the mountain breast,
and as usual the Napier took it at an easy ten miles
an hour, and could have done it faster if I had let
her. The view grew fairer and fairer as we mounted,
and the coast line disclosed itself to north and south.
In some three miles we were at the gate of the town.
Taormina is practically a long, straight street, at one
end the Timeo, at the other the San Domenico. It is
simply a Sicilian village, with its Norman fountain
and its crumbling palaces, but with a history that
goes back to Greece in its prime. Above rises on
a splendid height the old Castello; further inland,
and higher still, is the wild village of Mola peeping
over the edge of a precipice that overhangs the valley.
Twenty miles away floats the stately cone of Etna.
It is a place of entrancing beauty, and the gem of it
all is the ancient Greek theatre. I suppose that
nowhere in the world have nature and the noblest art

320 The Lightning Conductor

that ever adorned the earth combined in a more
perfect picture.

The resting-place chosen by Miss Randolph is not
out of that picture, but a part of it. For five hundred
years it was a monastery. How well those good old
monks knew how to do themselves! They laid out
a fairy garden on a gracious headland above the sea,
overlooking a panorama the most beautiful in Sicily.
They planted it thick with orange and lemon trees
and flowers as sweet as bloomed in Eden. Now the
monks are banished, but the garden remains, and
their old home (with its lovely cloisters, its long, dim
corridors pannelled with painted saints, its tiled rooms
and deep-set windows) opens hospitable doors to
strangers.

Aunt Mary is delighted with the San Domenico,
because a "real live prince" is her landlord. Even
the Goddess says that it makes her feel more than
ever that she is living in a fairy story. Now, if only
the fairy godmother will come along to-morrow, and
waving her wand over Brown, transform him into a
worthier hero of that story, and soften the heart of
the Princess! Do you think it will be so? In any
event, it has done me good to write you this. If all
goes well I'll wire. I don't think there's much sleep
for me to-night. As soon as there's a chance that
the mater can have arrived I shall go down to Santa
Margherita, Sir Evelyn Haines' place, and have it
out with her.

Your somewhat distracted but faithful friend,

JACK.

MISS SYBIL BARROW TO HER SCHOOL

FRIEND, MISS MINNIE HOBSON, OF

EDGBASTON, BIRMINGHAM

SANTA MARGHERITA,

TAORMINA, SICILY,

January 28.
My darling Min, —

You were a saucy girl to chaff me like that
about the Honourable Mr. Winston. It didn't matter
one bit to me whether we got to know him or not.
Why should it? Even when he comes into the title
he'll only be a viscount, and Lord Brighthelmston
may live for years. It wasn't to meet him that we
joined the viscountess, though I shouldn't wonder if
she had something up her sleeve when she asked us
to meet her in Cannes. Anyway, she'd taken a tre-
mendous fancy to me. We got on awfully well
together at first, but she needs a lot of living up to,
and if she hadn't held a sort of salon everywhere
we've been, with all kinds of swells, home-made and
foreign, kootooingto her, and being introduced to us,
I don't know but I should have persuaded Pa to
drop the whole business long ago. She's a nice old
lady, but sometimes, when you let yourself go, and
are having a ripping time, she freezes up and looks at
you as if you were some unknown species of animal

321

322 The Lightning Conductor

in the Zoo. That's what I mean when I say sne
wants a lot of living up to; and more than once in
the last two months or so I'd have given my boots if
Pa and I hadn't bound ourselves to travel about with
her, but had gone off on our own, with a courier, like
that handsome one I sent you the snapshot of with
the Yankee girl at Blois. Well, anyhow, it's all come
to an end now; and she's introduced us to dozens of
smart people, so there's nothing to regret.

Pa and I are going back to Naples to-morrow or
the day after, and so home to England. Give me
London! I'm dying for a good game of ping pong.
I asked them to get it at the Grand Hotel in Rome,
but the silly things didn't. Addie Johnson has
written and asked me to a swell dance she's giving
at the Kensington Town Hall; I hope we can get
back in time; and I may be able to take a charming
cavalier with me. But I'll tell you about him later.
We've been having scenes of great excitement for
the last few days, which have helped me to get
through the time in Sicily, which otherwise would
have been pretty slow, as I don't care for country,
abroad or at home. Besides, the oranges and lemons
keep falling on your head, and at night you have to
throw gravel at the nightingales to keep the noisy
creatures still. I collected some on purpose.

Well, I told you how vexed Lady B. was because
''Jack, " as she calls him, couldn't get to Cannes. He
was always writing from different places and making
excuses, till Pa said in his joking way, he'd bet that
"Jack was up to some game of his own," and my
lady didn't like that a little bit. Finally, when Pa

The Lightning Conductor 3,23.

and I got sick of Cannes, which is too far from
Monte Carlo to be lively, we all went on to Rome.
That was just after my last epistle to you. It rained
cats and dogs in Rome, and I never went into a
single church, not even St. Peter's. We planned to
wait for "Jack," but your letter came, and I was
afraid there might be something in that joke of yours
about his trying to keep out of my way, and I was
bound he shouldn't think I was after him. There's
as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it for
a girl who can bait her hook as I can. So when
Lady B.'s neuralgia got bad, we proposed Naples,
and it was very nice. But she is a fussy old thing
and couldn't let well alone; she'd seen Naples and
hadn't seen Sicily. Nothing would do but we should
"run over." I would have put my foot down on that,
but Lady B. mentioned that she had a friend at some
place called Taormina, an English baronet with a
lovely house, who always had a lot of nice people
staying with him. And she said she'd often been
invited, and would get an invitation for us all for
a few days if we'd go. I thought we might meet
someone it would be a good thing for us to know, so
I consented; but we were to go first to Palermo and
Siracusa, and work on to Taormina by the time our
invitation arrived.

Palermo wasn't so bad. I never saw so many
young men in my life, all very dark, with enormous
eyes, and little moustaches and canes, both of which
they twirled a good deal when they looked at anyone
they admired. But Syracuse was awful. I daresay
it was nice enough when you could be a tyrant and

324 The Lightning Conductor

cut off your enemies' heads, and build gold statues
to yourself; but tyrants are out of their job now,
and things have been allowed to go down a good
deal since their day. I nearly cried when I saw what
sort of hole it was, but our invitation to Sir Evelyn
Haines' (which we found waiting for us) wasn't for
that day, but the next. It was settled that we should
go on by the first train in the morning, when a tele-
gram arrived for Lady B. She was in a twitter, and
gave it to Pa to read, and say what he thought. It
was sent from Naples by a perfect stranger to her,
who signed his name James Van Wyck Payne; and
as nearly as I can remember, it said, " Beg that you
will receive me at Syracuse. Have travelled on from
Rome on purpose immediately on learning your
address. Have news of vital importance to give you
about your son."

Lady B. couldn't think what it all meant; but she
was anxious, and we were curious. She and Pa
calculated times, and discovered that if we went
away by the first train we would miss the mysterious
Mr. Payne, so it was decided that we must wait till
the next, and a telegram was sent to an address in
Naples to that effect.

In the morning, as early as he could, he arrived. I
was on the verandah of the hotel, watching, dressed in
my travelling frock, so as to be ready to get off by
the next train. When a stranger came running up
the steps asking for Lady Brighthelmston, you can
believe I kept my eyes open, though I pretended to
be reading an awfully exciting book of Guy Booth-
by's — really great! He was young, and evidently

The Lightning Conductor 325

American, but very handsome, and the best of form;
blond, tall, and smooth-faced, with such a clever
expression, and unfathomable eyes. He was shown
in; but as Lady B.'s sitting-room had a window
opening on the verandah, with the blinds only half
shut, I could presently hear from where I sat a
murmur of voices which I knew to be hers and his.
Just as Pa had joined me, and was asking whether
the gentleman had turned up yet, there came a stifled
shriek from Lady B.'s room. We jumped up, rushed
to the window, and met her there as she was running
out to call us, crying, with Mr. Payne at her back.
We went in, and she made him tell his story, which
was very complicated. However, we soon under-
stood that the Honourable Mr. Winston's chauffeur
had stolen his motor-car, and his watch (which Mr.
Payne had got out of pawn and shown to Lady B.)
and his clothes, and probably murdered him. Lady
B. hadn't had any letter for ages; she had supposed
that was because she was travelling about so much
lately and had missed them, but now she saw that
anything might easily have happened to her son.
Everything was frightfully confused and exciting,
and while Pa tried to soothe Lady B., Mr. Payne
and I stepped out on the verandah to talk things
over quietly, as I had kept my head. He showed
wonderful detective gifts, and from some details he
told me about the girl and a middle-aged American
lady, friends of his, whom the chauffeur had deceived,
I began to think it might be the party I had seen in
Blois, only with a different car; but that, as I said to
Mr. Payne, must have been before any tragedy had

326 The Lightning Conductor

taken place. He thought I was probably right about
the identity; and to make sure, I went upstairs tc
one of my boxes which wasn't locked yet, and rooted
out the negative of that snapshot I sent you from
Blois. We looked at the film together, each holding
it with one hand to keep it from curling, and Mr.
Payne exclaimed, "That's the man! that's the
scoundrel! " I had thought the face awfully good-
looking, but it didn't seem the same to me then,
and I had to admit it might be that of a murderer.
I proposed showing it to Lady B., but she was fright-
fully upset already; and Mr. Payne said he didn't
see that it would do any good to harrow up her
feelings still more now, and perhaps if we did she
wouldn't be able to undertake a journey. If he'd
known in time that we were going on to Taormina,
he wouldn't have kept us at Syracuse, but would
have joined us at Taormina; for he had news that
Miss Randolph, that stuck-up American girl, and
her aunt had just arrived there the night before, with
poor Mr. Winston's stolen car, which the wicked
chauffeur was driving. He — Mr. Payne, I mean —
had written from Rome to the girl's father in New
York, that she was in the power of an abandoned
ruffian, and the father had started off to the rescue
the very day after receiving the letter. He had
cabled to Mr. Payne in Rome, and the message had
been forwarded to Naples, but in that way they had
missed each other, and Mr. Payne only knew that
the old man had been following the girl about from
pillar to post; that he'd heard in Naples that she'd
gone to Palermo, and had proceeded there himself.

The Lightning Conductor 327

Probably, when he found that she had left, if the
hotel people could tell him where she was likely to
be by this time, he wouldn't wait for an ordinary
train, but would take a special. Mr. Payne said he
was that kind of man; and if Lady B. would go on
now by the next train to Taormina, everybody might
confront the chattffeur and denounce him at once.
By everybody he meant himself, Lady B., and this
Mr. Randolph, of New York. I was very much
interested, of course, and naturally wanted to be in
at the death, which Mr. Payne seemed quite pleased
to have me do, for we had by this time made up
great friends; we seemed so congenial in many ways,
and he knows such quantities of swell people every-
where. The Duke of Burford is a great chum of
his, and so is that handsome Lord Lane that you
were wild to meet last year and couldn't get to know.
But perhaps you shall yet, dear. Who can tell?

Poor Lady B. was as weak as a rag, but determined
on revenge, and Pa kept her up on a raw egg in
wine. We took the train for Taormina. It was a
strange journey. We four reserved a carriage for
ourselves, and Lady B. asked questions till she was
too exhausted to speak. Then she sat with her eyes
shut, and salts to her nose, trying to strengthen her-
self for what was to come, while Mr. Payne and I
talked in low voices about people we knew. Some-
times I intimated I knew them, too, and others still
more swell, for I didn't like to seem out of it; and
luckily I'd read a great deal about them in the
Society papers, so I was never at a loss.

Mr. Payne was in communication with the Amer-

328 The Lightning Conductor

ican girl's aunt, who was partly in his confidence; and
he knew from her that they would be at the San
Domenico, at Taormina. It was afternoon when we
arrived, and as we didn't want to waste a moment,
we drove past the very house where we were invited
to stay, up to the San Domenico, where the wretched
pretender was to be run to earth. It was a very long,
mountainous drive, and Lady B. was trembling with
excitement. She wanted to have it out of the man
what he had done with her son, and, I do believe, if
it had been back in old times, she would have been
in a mood to put out his eyes with sed-hot irons, or
flay him alive to make him confess. She didn't say
much, but her eyes were bright, and there was such
a flush of excitement on her face that she looked
quite pretty and almost young.

At last we got up to the hotel, and had to walk
through two courtyards; for it used to be a monastery,
and is very quaintly built. A porter walked up to
see what we wanted, and Mr. Payne asked for Miss
Randolph and Miss Kedison. The man said they
had gone out on donkeys for an excursion up in the
mountains to a place called Mola, which we could
see from the hotel, overhanging a precipice. He
said they hadn't been gone long, and probably
wouldn't be back for at least tv,o hours. Then
Mr. Payne inquired if their chauffeur who drove
their motor-car was staying at the hotel, and if he
had gone with the ladies.

The porter answered that the chauffeur was at
another hotel, and that he had not joined the excur-
sion, but he had seen the ladies off with their donkeys

The Lightning Conductor 329

and guide. When the man began to understand
that we were all more interested in the where-
abouts of the chauffeur than of the mistresses, he
added that one of the servants of the hotel who had
just been down to the station had mentioned meeting
the chauffeur in very smart clothes (quite different
from when he had been with the ladies) going down
the hill towards Santa Margherita, Sir Evelyn Haines'
house, where there was a big reception on.

While we were talking another man came out — a
sort of under-porter, and when he heard our porter
telling that Miss Randolph had gone up to Mola,
he said in that case he had made a great mistake,
for he had sent an American gentleman who had
been inquiring for her to the wrong place. He had
supposed that she would be at Sir Evelyn Haines'
house, for a bazaar was being held there for the
benefit of a charity, and almost all the English and
Americans at the hotel San Domenico and the other
Taormina hotels had gone to it. The gentleman
seemed in a great hurry, the porter had noticed; and
he had said that he had come from Palermo in a
special train, so as not to waste any time.

"Ah, didn't I tell you what Chauncey Randolph
would do?" exclaimed Mr. Payne, turning to me
as if we were old friends. I believe Chauncey
Randolph has the reputation of being a millionaire;
but I don't suppose he's got any more money or is
a bit more important than Pa.

We had kept our cab, which was waiting outside,
and after a few minutes' discussion between Lady B.
and Mr. Payne, it was decided that we should drive

330 The Lightning Conductor

straight down to Sir Evelyn Haines', where probably
the horrible chauffeur was audaciously passing him-
self off as the Honourable Jack Winston, whom Sir
Evelyn had never met.

Just as Pa was helping Lady B. into a cab, Mr.
Payne exclaimed "Molly!" and I looked over my
shoulder to see the stuck-up thing I had met in
Blois. She was dressed differently, but I recognized
her at once. I suppose some people would call her
pretty, but I don't in the least, though she may be
the sort of girl men like. She was walking, and her
fat aunt was hanging on to her arm, and an Italian
man leading two donkeys was close behind them.

"Why, Jimmy!" she answered, appearing to be
very surprised, and glancing from Mr. Payne to
Lady B., from her to Pa and me. She shook hands,
then walked up to the cab to speak to Lady B., and
had begun explaining that her aunt had had a fall
off the donkey she was riding, and they had given
up their excursion, when Mr. Payne interrupted her
to do a little explaining on his side.

She stood looking perfectly dazed, as he told her
how it was now proved beyond a doubt that her
chauffeur, of whom she thought so highly, was a
fraudulent villain, a thief, and, it was to be feared,
even worse. He said that he had suspected for some
time, but now his suspicions were confirmed by Lady
Brighthelmston, who believed that some terrible evil
had fallen upon her son through this Brown. Miss
Kedison chimed in, and so did Lady B., and I don't
much wonder that it took the girl some time to
understand what they were all driving at, sharp as

The Lightning Conductor 331

these Yankee women are. When it was clear what
they accused the chauffeur of doing, she said it was
absolutely impossible, that there was certainly some
extraordinary mistake, and she would not believe
any harm of Brown. Then Mr. Payne told her that
anyhow her father believed, and owing to a warning
letter, had come all the way from New York to take
her from the clutches of an unscrupulous scoundrel
capable of anything. She was surprised at that.
Evidently her father hadn't let her know he was
coming. Perhaps he thought that if he did, she'd
elope with the chauffeur. She had gone from red to
white, from white to red, while the three poured
accusations on her favourite ; but when she heard her
father was actually on the spot, she really did look
rather handsome for a moment. It was as if a light
from inside illuminated her face. "Dad here!" she
exclaimed, with her eyes shining. "Oh, then every-
thing will be all right! Where — where is he? "

' ' Gone down to look for you at the house of Lady
Brighthelmston's friend, Sir Evelyn Haines, where
your chauffeur is swaggering about like a wolf in
sheep's clothing to be presently delivered into our
hands," replied Mr. Payne solemnly. "Come with
us, meet your father, and be convinced with yc'ir
own eyes of that scoundrel's guilt."

"If my father is there looking for me, I will go,"
said the girl. "Aunt Mary, you had better stay here
and lie down."

That is the way these American girls order their
middle-aged relatives about. If I told Pa to stop
somewhere and lie down, he'd tell me to go hang.

332 The Lightning Conductor

but Aunt Mary didn't seem to mind. She just
bowed to everybody and trotted away, as meek as
a fat white lamb, and Mr. Payne engaged another
cab for Miss Randolph and himself, and we drove
down the hill. Those two were in front of us, and
I could see him talking to her all the way like a
father-confessor, his face close to her ear; but she
never looked round at him once.

I was almost as much excited as Lady B. by the
time we stopped at the gate of Sir Evelyn Haines'
house, which used to be a monastery. Most things
in Sicily seem to have been monasteries or palaces.
Our luggage had been sent straight up there from
the railway station in another cab, for owing to
Lady B.'s state of mind at Syracuse, no word had
been sent as to what train we would arrive by. You
don't drive in, for it isn't a modern gentleman's place
at all, but has been left as much as possible as it was
in old, old days. We walked, Lady B. leaning on
Pa's arm, I by her other side, and Mr. Payne behind
us with Miss Randolph, because she wouldn't go
ahead, though I know he wanted to.

It's really a beautiful place, for people who like
that old-fashioned, queer kind of thing, with a lovely
garden, full of all kinds of flowers such as you see
at home, and quite tropical ones, too. There were
a great many well-dressed people walking about, for
the charity bazaar was on, and no doubt everybody
was glad of a chance to get into the house and talk
about it afterwards as if they knew Sir Evelyn and
had been his guests. There were tables set out
under the trees, and tea was being carried round.

The Lightning Conductor 333

Suddenly I heard Miss Randolph exclaim, "There's
Dad! " and at the same moment she ran ahead of
us, across the grass to where a tall, big man with
short, curly grey hair and a smooth-shaven face
stood under a tree talking to another man whose
back — which was turned to us — looked a tiny bit
familiar.

At once Mr. Payne stepped forward, and said
eagerly, "Lady Brighthelmston, the man Brown is
here. He has got hold of Miss Randolph's father.
Heaven knows what may have passed. Come with
me, and confront him with a question about your
son."

With a sort of gasp the poor old lady allowed
herself to be hurried across the lawn, aitd I begged
Pa to come along quick, because I didn't want to
miss Mr. Payne's great moment.

Miss Randolph had got to the tall, grey-haired
man, and was holding out her hands, without a word,
when Mr. Payne said in a sharp voice, "Brown!"
The other man turned. It was the courier I snap-
shotted in Blois.

"Jack ! " cried Lady B. And then it was our turn
to be surprised.

We supposed at first that she'd gone mad; but,
my dear girl, it was true. The murderous chauffeur
was the Honourable Jack! But I do believe he was
ashamed of himself for the silly trick he'd played,
for all he laughed and showed his white teeth,
because he was as red as a beet through his brown
skin, and pulled his moustache, trying to talk, when
his mother interrupted him by exclaiming, and

334 The Lightning Conductor

asking questions which she never gave him a chance
to answer. And while he talked to his mother,
attempting to brazen it out, he looked at Miss Ran-
dolph, but she kept her head turned away.

As for poor Mr. Payne, I was sorry for him. He
had meant so well, and worked so hard for every-
body's good, and now it had come to nothing. He
did his best to make himself right with his American
friend, saying, " Mr. Randolph, at all events, this man
has insulted your daughter, travelling around Europe
with her under false pretences. What do you intend
to do about it?"

But the big man answered, in a slow, drawling
way, as if he were just ready to laugh, "Well, I
guess I won't do much. Mr. Winston and I met
here accidentally, and talked to each other awhile
before either of us knew who the other was; and
when we did know, why, he was able to give me
a pretty satisfactory explanation. I guess there's
nothing much that's wrong; and I hope Mr. Winston
will introduce me to his mother."

Aren't Americans queer? I will say, though, that
the girl didn't seem inclined to take things so calmly.
Her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes looked about
twice too big for her face with anger or something
like it.

Pa and I were rather out of the "durbah," for like
the bat in the fable, we were neither bird nor beast,
and had to stand aside while the fight between the two
kinds of creatures went on. By-and-by Mr. Payne
joined us, poor fellow, and I did what I could to con-
sole him, telling him that was always the way in this

The Lightning Conductor 335

world, with the well-meaning, unselfish people. He
was awfully grateful for my kindness, and when he
heard that Pa and I had just that very minute been
talking things over and deciding we'd had enough of
being abroad, he asked if we'd mind his travelling
with us as far as England, where he might stop for
a few weeks, and drive about in his motor-car. Of
course, I said we wouldn't mind; so I may bring him
to the dance at Kensington Town Hall, if he isn't too
big a swell for that set.

Of course, Sir Evelyn Haines soon found us out,
and was very kind; but Mr. Payne would go, and
I've hardly seen anything of Lady B. since, though
it's now after dinner. I suppose the Honourable
Jack is by way of being in love with Miss Randolph,
or else he wants her dollars, which is most likely,
considering the foxy way he seems to have gone
about the business. But these American girls think
such a lot of themselves, that they don't like being
played with; and judging by the look on her face
this afternoon when she heard the truth, she was
hurt and angry all the way down to the quick. I
shouldn't wonder if she refused to have anything
more to do with him, for all he seemed to have got
on the soft side of her father; and I must say, in my
opinion, it would serve him right if she did.

Good-bye, my child. It's late, and I'm tired. I
don't care a rap how the thing does turn out. It
isn't my business.

Your affectionate

SYB.

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HERSELF

January 28, HOTEL SAN DOMENICO,
TAORMINA.

I'm going to write it all down just as it happened,
and see how it looks in black and white. Then per-
haps I can judge better whether I've been very
weak and undignified, and a lot of other things
which I've always been sure I never would be, under
any provocation; or whether I've done what no nor-
mal girl could help doing.

It's the sort of thing one couldn't possibly tell
anybody, not even one's dearest school-friend. I did
promise Elise Astley that if I ever got engaged, she
should be told exactly what He said, and what I said,
but then I didn't know how differently one would
feel about it afterwards; besides, I'm not engaged,
I only — no, this isn't the way I meant to begin, I
am afraid I'm getting a good deal mixed. I must
be — more concise.

Note i. If I think when I come to read this over
that I have not demeaned myself like a self-respect-
ing, patriotic American girl, I will tear this up and
write a letter to — a Certain Person.

Note 2. If, on the contrary, I decide, on mature
deliberation, that I could not have acted otherwise,
7 will keep this always in the secret drawer of my

336

The Lightning Conductor 337

writing-desk, where I can take it out and look at it
at least once every yeai until I am an old woman —
ever so much older than Aunt Mary.

When Jimmy Payne suddenly hurled himself at
me out of a cab (just as Aunt Mary and I and a
donkey were trailing disconsolately down from Mola)
and exploded into fireworks calculated to blow my
poor Lightning Conductor into fragments, I threw
cold water on his Roman candles and rockets.

All the same, though, I felt as if I had been dipped
first into boiling hot, then freezing cold water myself.
I couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't believe any of
Jimmy's sensational accusations of Brown, and I de-
fended him whenever Jimmy would let me get in a
word edgewise. But when he told me that Dad had
come half across the world from New York to Sicily
on the strength of his statements, I was wild — partly
with anger and partly with anxiety to see my dear
old Angel "immediately if not sooner."

I don't remember a word Jimmy said to me, driv-
ing down to Sir Edward Haines', where Dad had
gone expecting to find me. I've just a hazy recol-
lection of being hurried through a beautiful garden;
I knew that poor Lady Brighthelmston (piteously
worried about her son) and a rather common girl
and her father, whom we'd stumbled across in Blois,
were with us. Their cab had come behind ours. I
saw Dad in the distance, talking to Brown, who
looked less like a hired chauffeur than ever, and then
— then came the thunderbolt,,

It was almost as difficult to believe at first that
he had tricked me by pretending to be Brown, when

338 The Lightning Conductor

he was really Mr. Winston, as it would have been
to believe Jimmy Payne's penny-dreadful stories.
But you can't go on doubting when a virtuous old
lady claims a man as her own son. I had to accept
the fact that he was Jack Winston.

For an instant I felt as if it were a play, and I were
some one in the audience, looking on. It didn't seem
real, or to have anything to do with me. Then I caught
his eyes. They were saying, "Do forgive me"; and
with that I realized how much there was to forgive.
He had made me behave like a perfect little fool,
giving him good advice and tips — actually tips / —
telling him (or very nearly) that he was " quite like a
gentleman," and hundreds of other outrageous things
which all rushed into my mind, as they say your
whole past life does when you are drowning.

I gave him a glance — quite a short one, because
I could hardly look him in the face, thinking of those
tips and other things.

Then I turned away, and began talking to Dad;
but very likely I talked great nonsense, for I hadn't
the least idea what I was saying, except that I kept
exclaiming the same five words over and over, like
a phonograph doll: " I am glad to see you! I am glad
to see you!"

Perhaps I had presence of mind enough to invite
the dear thing to take a stroll with me, for the sake
of escaping from Brown; for, anyway, I woke up
from a sort of dream, to find myself walking into a
summer-house alone with Dad.

"Don't you think," he was saying, "that you
treated Mr. Winston rather rudely?"

The Lightning Conductor 339

"Rudely?" I repeated. "How has he treated me,
f should like to know?"

" If you really would like to know," returned Dad,
in that nice, calming way he has which, even when
you are ruffled up, makes you feel like a kitty-cat
being stroked, "I don't see, girlie dear, that you
have so very much to complain of. I've been
having a chat with him, and if he tells the truth, he
appears to have served you pretty well. But
perhaps you will say he doesn't tell the truth as to
that?"

"Oh, he served me well enough — too well." said I.
"But let's not speak of him. I want to talk about
you,"

"There's plenty of time for that," said Dad. " I've
come to stay — for a while. Before we begin on me,
let's thrash out this matter of Mr. Winston,"

" It deserves to be thrashed," I remarked, trying to
laugh. But I've heard things that sounded more like
laughs than that. I hoped Dad didn't notice it was
wobbly.

"He's told me the whole story," went on Dad,
"so perhaps I'm in a position to judge better than
you. Women are supposed to have no abstract
sense of justice, but I thought my girl was different.
You hear what Winston has got to say first, and
then you can send him to the right-about if you
please."

" I don't see anything abstract in that. It's purely
personal," said I. "Mr. Winston can't expect me to
hear him, or even to see him, again."

" He hopes, not expects, as a chap feels about going

340 The Lightning Conductor

to heaven," said Dad. "Ill fetch him, and you can
get it over."

" Do nothing of the kind* " I exclaimed. " Let him
stay with his mother,"

"I guess I'm competent to entertain bis mother
for a few minutes," suggested Dad. "SLe's a very
pleasant-looking lady."

I would have stopped him if I could; but when I
saw he was determined, I just shut my lips tight, and
let him go. What I meant to do was to whisk out as
soon as his back was turned, so that when Mr. Win-
ston should come, he would find me gone. There
was no danger he wouldn't understand why; and a
decided action like that on my part would settle
everything for the future.

But as I got to the door I saw him, not six feet
distant. He must either have been on the way to
the summer-house when Dad left me, or else he'd
been waiting close by. Anyhow, evidently he and
Dad couldn't have said two words to each other;
there hadn't been time; and there was Dad marching
off as if to find and "entertain" Lady Brighthelm-
ston. I should almost have had to push past Mr,
Winston, if I'd persisted in escaping, which would
have looked childish, so quickly I resolved to stand
my ground — in the summer-house — and face it out.
My heart was beating so fast I could hardly think,
and I had to tell myself crossly, with a sort of mental
shake, that after all he was the guilty one, not I,
before I could catch at even a decent amount of
savoir faire.

Naturally, as it was the only thing to be said,, his

The Lightning Conductor 341

lips asked the same question his eyes had asked
before. "Can you forgive me?"

I always thought Brown's voice one of the nicest
things about him, unless perhaps his eyes; and both
were at their very nicest now. I hadn't realized,
till he came to me, how much I should want to for-
give him. I did want to, awfully, but I felt it would
never do; and I think I must have been commendably
dignified as I answered: "The hardest possible thing
for a woman to forgive a man is making her ridicu-
lous."

" But then," he cut in, quite boldly, " I don't ask
you to forgive me for a sin I haven't committed,
only for those I have."

"You have made me ridiculous," I insisted.

" I fancied it was myself; but I didn't mind that,
or anything else which gave me a chance of being
near you, even under false pretences. It is for deceiv-
ing you that I ask to be forgiven. I lived a good many
lies as Brown, but honestly, I believe I never told
one. Do forgive me= I sha'n't be able to bear my
life if you don't."

"I can't forgive you," I said again.

"Then punish me first and forgive me afterwards
— very soon. I deserve that you should do both."

" I think you do deserve the first, but I don't quite
see how or why you deserve the second."

" Because I worship you, and would rather be your
servant than be king of a country in which you didn't
live."

"Oh!" I couldn't say another word, for thinking
of Brown being in love with me, and there being no

342 The Lightning Conductor

reason why I shouldn't let myself love him too —
except, of course, one's self-respect after all that had
happened. But just for an instant I didn't think about
that last part; and I was so surprised, and so happy
— or so shocked and so unhappy (I couldn't be sure
which; only, whatever the sensation was, it was verv
violent), that I was speechless.

Brown took advantage of that, and talked a great
deal more. I tried to look away from him, but I
simply couldn't. He held my eyes, and after he had
told me whole chapters about his thoughts and
feelings since the very first day of our meeting, it
occurred to me that he was holding my hands too
— both of them, I am not sure he hadn't been
doing it for some time before I found out, but it
was his kissing the hands which brought me to
myself.

It seemed too extraordinary that Brown should be
doing that — almost as if I were dreaming. And to
be perfectly frank with myself, it was an exquisite
dream; because such strange things can happen in
dreams, and you don't seem to mind a bit. Luckily,
he didn't know this; and I snatched my hands away,
exclaiming: "Mr. Winston!"

" Don't call me that," he begged. " Call me Brown/'

"But you are not Brown."

" I love you just as much as when I was Brown,
and more. If you only knew what thousands of times
I have longed to tell you, and the heavenly relief it
is to do it at last!"

"You have no more right now, Less, even; fot
Brown seemed honest/'

The Lightning Conductor 343

*' If Brown had forgotten himself, and — and kissed
the hem of your dress, what would you have done?"

"I — don't know," was my feeble answer.

"You would have sent him away."

"No — I don't think I could have done that. I —
I depended on Brown so much. I used — to wonder
how I should ever get on without him,."

" Don't get on without him. I'll be your chauffeur
all my days, if those are the only terms on which
you'll take me back. But are there no other terms?
What I want is — "

"What?" I couldn't resist asking when he paused.

"Everything!"

Something in his face, his eyes, his voice — his
whole self, I suppose— carried me off my feet into
deep water. I just let myself go, I was so frightfully
happy. I knew now that I had been in love with
Brown for montns and had been miserable and rest-
less because he was — only Brown.

I heard myself saying: " i do forgive you."

"And love me — a little?"

"No; not a little."

Then he caught me in his arms, though at any
moment some one might have passed the summer-
house door and seen us. He didn't think of that,
apparently, and neither did I at the time. I thought
only of Brown — Brown — Brown. There was nobody
in the world but Brown.

I don't think I precisely said in so many words
that I would be engaged to him, though he may
have taken that for granted in the end; and if I did
give a wrong impression, I had no time to correct itr/

344 The Lightning Conductor

for it seemed that we had been talking about the
future and such things no more than a minute, when
Dad came sauntering by with Lady Brighthelmston.

They both looked at us as if they expected to hear
something "extra special," as the newsboys say; and
I gave a glance at Brown, or Jack, or whatever I
ought to call him, which said, "If you dare!"

Having been forgiven once, I suppose he thought
it would be wiser not to tempt Providence, so he held
his peace, and we all talked about the weather and
what a nice garden-party it was.

That is the reason why I still have the thing in my
own hands. If I read this over, as I am now going
to do, and disapprove of mvself, it is not too late to
change my mind.

P.S. I have read it. And I have thought things
over.

Molly Randolph, if you hadn't forgiven Brown, you
would have been a detestable little wretch, and you
would never have forgiven yourself, for he is the best
ever — except Dad.

It will be delicious to let myself love him as much
as ever I like, at last — my Lightning Conductor!

THB END

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•f A humorous romance of travel in northern.
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N. Y. EVENING POST :—

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A celebrated German professor dies leaving an unfinished
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES

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